Superintendent asked to step down after not airing Obama Speech...

http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/homepage/local_story_258000146.html

Controversy leads to resignation request
Cason asked to step down by community members

By Johnna Pinholster

VALDOSTA — The Rev. Floyd Rose called for Valdosta City School
Superintendent Dr. Bill Cason's resignation Monday night.

During the regular Board of Education meeting Rose, president of the
Valdosta/Lowndes County Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, spoke to the board about the superintendent's decision not
to air President Barack Obama's speech on education during school
hours.

Rose and hundreds of others converged on the BOE office demanding
answers for why the speech was not shown in a school system that is
predominately black.

On the day the speech was scheduled to air, Rose and others met with
Cason and discussed why the speech would not be shown. Cason, Rose
said, had plenty of time between the meeting and the speech to call
the schools and tell them to allow the children to watch the speech.

Rose said Cason's reasons for not showing the speech were that it did
not align with the Georgia Performance Standards that are the basis
for school lesson plans and that the speech and the lesson plans
provided would cut into instructional time.

"Let us be clear," Rose said. "We read the President's speech, and at
no time did he propose lesson plans before, during, or after his
speech, as claimed by Dr. Cason. He never mentioned lesson plans.
Never."

Rose went on to say that any offer to show the speech later is not
acceptable, he said.

"Here is what I know, here is what you know, here is what the hundreds
of people here and out in the street know," Rose said. "If Dr. Cason
were black and 80 percent of the school children in his district were
white, and he arbitrarily decided not to allow white children to watch
a white president's 'back to school' speech,' and whites came here
tonight in the numbers that blacks have come to protest, he would
resign, or be fired. And we are here to demand no less."

Rose got a standing ovation after his address to the board.

Cason then responded to what he called "allegations and accusations."

He said that he received notification of the speech only several days
before it was scheduled to be shown.

Cason went on to say that lesson plans were included to be used
before, during and after the speech.

During his comments a person from the audience shouted "He lies!"

As the lesson plans were presented they did not align with GPS, Cason said.

Checking around with other school systems in the area he found that
many chose not to air the speech at its scheduled time and if they did
they had provisions where students could opt out of watching the
speech.