Claremore Daily Progress

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September 10, 2009

Did Obama speak?

Only 30 Rogers County students see portion of president’s speech

By Randy Cowling, Managing Editor

September 10, 2009 — One might never have known that President Barack Obama presented a speech directly to schools in Rogers County on Tuesday.

Obama delivered a nationwide speech designed to encourage students to remain in school and to emphasize how important an education is for their future.

In Rogers County, Oklahoma, students in only one of the eight public school districts actually saw the speech and they weren’t able to see all of it due to Internet issues.

Pat Gougler, Foyil superintendent, said about 30 students gathered to watch the presidential address, but only saw a portion because access to the school’s Internet locked up throughout the network. School officials were able to download the presentation for students to view later.

Most school superintendents said teachers and students kept to their regular schedule. The speech, which is downloadable, was archived and students will have the opportunity to watch it later.

Mike McClaren, Claremore superintendent, said he gave principals the latitude to show the address if their teachers were using it in their lesson plan.

“The speech came during our lunch periods,” McClaren said. “We didn’t want to have an all-school assembly at that time.”

Claremore provided an opt-out option for parents who did not want their children to see the speech.

McClaren said there will be classes that view it as part of their lesson plan in the future, but they will have the option to not see it if their parents choose.

Dr. Kent Holbrook, superintendent at Inola, said, “Any child who wanted to see it could make a request.” No Inola students made a request.

At Catoosa, Dr. Rick McKibbe said the speech was downloaded and teachers will preview it before incorporating it into their lesson plans.

“We encourage our teachers to preview materials and then have guided instruction,” he said.

Superintendent Rick Thomas at Oologah-Talala, said students and teachers kept to their regular schedule.

“Those who want to see it can at a later date,” he said.

Sequoyah Superintendent Terry Saul said his students also remained on their normal schedule.

A spokesperson at Chelsea said there were no assemblies and the speech might be viewed in history class later.

All schools received numerous calls from parents when the speech was first announced.

Thomas said there were four or five calls from those opposed to their children seeing the speech and four or five calls from those wanting their children to see the speech.

McClaren said initially there was a lot of misinformation about the content of the speech.

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