Hot air warms Federal Way schools

The Federal Way School Board stepped in a deserved pile of unpleasantness by hugely overreacting to a few complaints about teachers showing Al Gore's important documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

A few people can make a difference, and similarly, a few squeaky wheels can create a big to-do over not much. A few parents are so convinced the documentary is based on shaky footing that they compelled a weak-willed School Board to place a quasi-moratorium on its showing. This is patently absurd.

The moratorium doesn't completely ban the documentary but it creates enough bureaucratic hoops for teachers to jump through that the net effect will be most teachers won't bother. They have to show opposing arguments and prove to administration officials they adequately conveyed the other side.

Global warming. Oooh, scary. Freaky. Political!!!

One parent who complained supports teaching creationism and opposes sex education and finds "An Inconvenient Truth" equally inconvenient. The best solution for his non-dilemma is to keep his own children home from school the day the documentary is shown, or send the child to the library to read a book.

Parents almost always have the opportunity to opt a student out of a program, film or class they find offensive. Most parents are accustomed to signing release forms stating that preference.

By Federal Way's logic, four or five parents could object to the risqué wording of Shakespeare or could renew the hardy, perennial complaints about "Huck Finn." We hire professionals to establish curriculum, and they should be allowed to do their jobs.

A handful of parents are denying hundreds of other students a chance to have a healthy discussion about an intelligent piece of work. Global warming is real and the next generation will have to live with it more than will the current generation.

The smartest scientists among us believe we have to face facts about global warming and man's contribution to it.

The Federal Way School Board's actions are, to be generous, ridiculous.