A school principal has apologized for showing a video at an assembly that a politically conservative group leader is calling "radical, leftist propaganda."

Children at Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington were shown a short video called "I pledge" on Aug. 28. The video opens with an image of President Barack Obama and part of a speech in which he says, "Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other." The video then features celebrities making pledges about how they will help the president and the world -- and that's where some say the problem lies.

Many pledges, such as supporting local food banks,

"Showing the video in a public school is completely inappropriate," said Jennifer Cieslewicz, whose daughter is a first-grader at the school. "I don't believe a video such as this that promotes certain values should be shown to elementary students, especially without parents being aware. "

Chris Williams, Davis School District spokesman, said school principal Ofelia Wade and school PTA leaders decided to show the video as part of an assembly about the school's theme for the year, service. He said the PTA board chose the video and Wade did not see it before it was shown in the assembly.

"It got to a point where she turned to her assistant and said, 'Oops, I wish I would have seen this before. I don't think I would have shown it,' " Williams said. He said Wade could see how some adults might find the video political.

"She acknowledges she was wrong and apologizes for it and says she's sorry," Williams said. Attempts to reach school PTA leaders Tuesday evening were unsuccessful.

Williams said Wade plans to send a letter home to parents Wednesday about the issue.

Gayle Ruzicka, president of conservative Utah Eagle Forum, said the video was blatantly political. She said other offensive pledges included, "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama," "I pledge allegiance to the funk, to the united funk of funkadelica," and pledges to not use plastic grocery bags and not flush the toilet after urinating.

"It's very inappropriate to show a radical, leftist propaganda piece that political to children," Ruzicka said. "If parents want their children to learn about those things and do them in the home, wonderful, fine, but it's not the place of the school to show a one-sided propaganda piece to children without parents knowing about it."

Cieslewicz said such values should be decided in the home, not at school.

"They shouldn't be troubling our youth with the woes of the world and making them feel like we're in slavery or they have to worry about how many times they flush the toilet or if they have a plastic water bottle," Cieslewicz said, referring to pledges in the video to "end slavery."

Ruzicka said she contacted local media about the video after receiving complaints from several parents. Ruzicka said she worried the video's messages would confuse children whose parents might choose to use plastic bags when shopping or who want their children to flush the toilet after every use. Also she said she didn't like a pledge "to be of service to Barack Obama" as he is here to serve Americans, not the other way around.

Ruzicka said she'd like to see the school district send a link to the video to all parents before an upcoming back-to-school night so they can voice their opinions and discuss it with their children. Williams said it's unlikely the district will send out a link, but parents are welcome to access the video on YouTube.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Klonsky

Mike Klonsky speaking at Loyola University, Chicago, 2007.

Michael Klonsky (born 1943) is an American educator, author,^[1] and political activist. Klonsky is one of the leaders of the modern small schools movement which has done much to transform the face of secondary school education in the United State. His early research [1] on issues of school size and its impact on student achievement, school violence, and dropout rates, helped pave the way towards the development of thousands of new small and charter schools across the country.

In the 1970s he became a leader of the New Communist Movement which broke away from the older Communist Party USA and its allegiance to the Soviet Union. Klonsky later became critical of Marxist dogma but stayed active in civil rights, anti-war and educational reform politics. Klonsky is now a retired professor of education after teaching at several universities, including the University of Illinois, Chicago^[2] and the Fischler School of Education at Nova Southeastern University.^[3] His academic work focused on small school size as a solution to the problems of inner city schools. He is now the director of the Small Schools Workshop, a school outreach program associated with UIC.^[4][5]

Klonsky's father, Robert Klonsky, a WWII veteran who fought as a volunteer against the Franco fascists during the Spanish Civil War, had been arrested and convicted of "conspiring to advocate Marxist views" Smith Act during the McCarthy period.^[6] The Supreme Court later overturned the case. In the late 1960s Michael Klonsky became the national secretary of the Students for a Democratic Society,^[7] which he joined as a student at San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge).^[8] He was one of five S.D.S. members arrested on May 12, 1969, when prank phone calls sent police and firefighters to the S.D.S. offices in Chicago.^[7] In the 1970s he headed the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist),^[9] in which role he was one of the first westerners allowed to visit the People's Republic of China.^[9][10]

In 2008, Klonsky's thirty-year-old political positions became prominent again due to the United States presidential election of 2008. Several people questioned Barack Obama, incluing Hillary Clinton, George Stephanopoulos^[11], John McCain and Sarah Palin, based upon Obama's relationship with William Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.^[12]