Parental Rights in “Lightning Lockdown”
It was a dark and stormy night. Or, more specifically, it was a dark and stormy night by the time parents in Orange County, Florida were allowed to pick up their children from school.Thunderstorms had started earlier in the afternoon of Friday, August 24th. With an eye on the lighting outside, school officials decided to keep the thousands of children at Ocoee Elementary and Middle Schools inside the building — indefinitely. When mothers and fathers began to arrive to pick up their children, security officials turned them away, informing parents that they were not permitted to pick up their children.
HELD LIKE HOSTAGES
The refusal of school officials to allow parents to sign out their own children quickly escalated to a lockdown, or a “hostage situation”, as some parents called it. “These are our rights and we feel like our rights were violated because we could not sign out our children,” parent Julie Leckie said.
It wasn’t until around 8:00 at night that parents were permitted — finally — to take their children home.
An editorial on the Florida school lockdown published afterwards in the Orlando Sentinel states that, “It’s obvious that schools are responsible for the safety of children, but that responsibility ends where the responsibilities and rights of parents begin.” The editorial agrees that schools should take steps to protect children, but reminds readers that in the end, “parents should have the final say.”
PROTECTING PARENTAL RIGHTS
At ParentalRights.org, we agree that parents are best qualified to make crucial decisions about their children’s safety, not to mention their education and upbringing. We are committed to protecting the vital role of parents in the lives of their kids and we are thankful that you are too. We live in an era when parental rights are coming under attack from government action and policy. It is an era when some would put government first and parents last in the lives of their own children. We can’t allow this to happen.
We need your help to safeguard the precious child-parent relationship. Join with us by encouraging your friends to get involved in the battle to protect parental rights.
SOURCES
Parents: Lighting Lockdown Violated Rights
Parents Furious After Schools Hold Students During Lighting Storm
