An employee at a Norfolk, Virginia elementary school is on administrative leave for handing out fetal dolls on the campus. The principal of Oak Wood Elementary has also been placed on administrative leave. It is unclear what the principal’s role in this matter was. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch:
The investigation began after The Virginian-Pilot inquired this week about reports that the dolls had been distributed to students at Oakwood.
School board member Kirk Houston Sr. called the fetus dolls a “pro-life” tool. He said distributing them to students was inappropriate and unacceptable.
The Washington Post reports:
The Virginian-Pilot reports that the dolls, which were distributed to students at Oakwood Elementary School in Norfolk over weeks or months, are not authorized instructional materials.
The dolls, in pink and brown and about 4 inches long, came with a “pro-life” message and information on fetal growth, the paper reports.
School officials have begun an investigation. The employee who distributed the dolls has not been identified
.
What would possess a person to do something this foolish? Talk about a captive audience and also an audience that is a little young to have anti abortion rhetoric pushed on them. Fetus dolls just should not be part of a public school setting.
[fetus doll picture from the AP]
I don’t even know what to say. Honestly, this is crazy!
A better approach would be to ensure the facts about abortion, all of the facts, are presented in an orderly fashion at the age appropriate level, and not just have some activist tossing out material without regard to which age group gets the information.
Who is to do the educating? Should the school?
How dare they! J. Tyler, the facts are often in the eyes of the beholder. Pregancy “help” clinics hand out “facts” but they are based on misinformation instead.
The one in Manassas sure puts out its fair share of DIS-information, or at least it used to. Just trying to look like a real clinic when it isn’t is DIS-information.
No different than tossing out condoms to students.
as “authorized instructional materials,” I meant to add.
At an elementary school, Emma? Last time I checked, handing out condoms wasn’t part of the elementary school Family Life Education curriculum…
Where are condoms just tossed out? I can’t think of a single school I have ever been in where that has happened.
Furthermore, why on earth would anyone set out condoms for elementary kids.
I just can’t equate condoms to fetus dolls. Maybe that is something someone’s mother should get them or a Sunday School class. A doll is a doll.
A condom has a function. Would we rather withhold condoms and have unwanted pregnancies increase? How about disease? I have no problem giving anyone who wants one for legitimate purposes a condom.
What’s wrong with knowing what a fetus looks like?
Saw one of these held up on camera at a city council meeting by a citizen during citizen time. Didn’t like it then, don’t like seeing the photo on this blog.
The plastic fetuses are insensitive to parents who have experienced miscarriages, stillbirth or infant loss.
If my daughter, in elementary school, had brought home one of the fetuses, I would have reacted emotionally as well.
I agree, Emma.
Here’s an idea–bring older kids to Richmond Museum where there is a sequence of displays from conception to birth. Do the science of it and let the kids make up their minds. If that’s not possible, include photos in a science book or health ed book or whatever they call those courses that parents have the opt-out option.
I gotta say, though, if my elementary aged child brought that home, I would wonder. And if there was a political message attached to the doll casing, I would raise a fit for sure. I loathe abortion, but that is one topic that needs to stay out of the classroom.
And Cindy, you are right about the dolls being insensitive to those who have had problematic pregnancies. I was recently in a classroom where a child said to the class that his step-mother had a baby and it was dead. I almost burst into tears.
I don’t want any of this stuff handed out in classrooms, just to be clear. Not condoms, not baby dolls, not campaign flyers, not big fake “news” posters that are really just shills for some corporate interest–none of it. To me it’s all the same—too many conflicting interests trying to impose their views on our kids.
Perhaps if our kids were simply allowed to focus on math, science, history, art, language and geography, rather than being used as lab mice for ever-expanding social experimentation, we might have a better shot at competing globally. We need to focus on those areas, and stop trying to use the schools to make up for every real or imagined parental deficiency.
This is really a good-news story. The school district in Norfolk placed an employee and principal on administrative leave after they exhibited extremely poor judgement in distributing pro-life materials. My only hope is that those who are so incensed by this will be just as upset when school employees distribute/support left-wing rhetoric, which appears to be far more prevalent in the public school system.
And yes … I would like to withhold condoms, that is …. not use taxpayer dollars to purchase condoms for students. It would be an interesting study to see if the teenage pregnancy and STD rates are lower in schools where condoms are made available compared to schools where they are not. I bet there is no significant correlation. If anyone has any facts to convince me otherwise, I would certainly welcome links to the studies.
I believe the issue is 2 fold. The first is that the fetus dolls were handed out in an elementary school. It simply was not age appropriate. Secondly, the dolls are part of pro-life education tools. Not appropriate for public schools.
I would not have a problem at all with fetus pictures being shown in an A & P class or human growth and development course. Those are more adult topics in classes adults take.
With little kids, however, it is purely an attempt to convert a captive audience.
I am inclined to more or less agree with Emma about what is handed out in the classroom. It detracts from the educational process.
Earth stopping. Reversing direction.
@ Kelly and Emma, where did the focus switch to condoms? I don’t know where this is coming from? Wouldn’t that be a part of the school nurse program rather than classroom instruction?
I am all for doing anything that lowers disease and unwanted pregnancy. I just don’t want it done during English class. Do nurses in Virginia hand out condoms? I have not heard of that happening.
At any rate, I see nothing in common with condoms and fetus dolls. I don’t think anyway was enraged, Kelly. I think many of us thought it to be very inappropriate.
Sickening and disgusting!
Maybe Bristol Palin can hand out plastic fetuses from the back of her trailer.
I don’t even know where to begin with story. These dolls have no business being handed out to public school children at any level, imo. I’m one of those people that are kind of creeped out by dolls of any kind, but this takes the cake.
Pro-choice/pro-life education is NOT for the public school system. That should be left up to parents, guardians, doctors, etc.
My aunt has had 7 miscarriages and still-births, and I’m offended on her behalf by these ugly little dolls.
@starryflights
How funny. And for a wink she could throw in a condom and/or IUD too. 😉
I guess if I was a kid at school I’d either have melted it down with a magnifying glass or treated it like a football. I might punched pencils into it and have fetus fights with em.
Whatever the intention was I don’t think students will see it the same way.
It would’ve been better aligned with a middle/high school program on child development.
Ha! I can picture the fetus fights.
I am curious why the principal got put on leave still.
There are always people who are so overly zealous in their believes that they try to ‘share’ those beliefs. It was a mistake chosing school children though,.
Small dolls of baby humans can cause this much uproar? But it’s OK to allow abortion groups like Planned Parenthood to indocrinate our kids and teach our kids to save the planet, save every animal BUT humans?
Gimme a break!! Our kid should not have the facts of human biology censored from them, like the leftwing schoolboard is trying to do.
If you are referring to the laughing, that was an impersonator and the situation has been handled, the remarks removed.
Now, I don’t think Planned Parenthood deals with animal rights. Perhaps you are thinking of PETA. And if the planet goes, there go both humans and animals. But I digress….
I believe the point is that someone was trying to indoctrinate children who were a captive audience. That is not acceptable. Perhaps you are not from Prince William County. Our school board is anything but left wing.
This story made http://detentionslip.org ! Check it out for all the crazy headlines from our schools.