Dr. Merrianne Dyer said, "we're going to discuss it administratively so that the middle school leadership can talk with their teachers."
Dyer added that she wants to be sure that "people are aware that any directions they might give might be misinterpreted." But she was quick to add, "it's so situational that it's hard to go back and say exactly what did or did not happen."
School board member Willie Mitchell said at Monday night's school board meeting he was told the incidents happened at Gainesville Middle School the day after the election.
Mitchell said students should be allowed freedom of political expression as long as it's not disruptive. Mitchell said he heard from middle school students that is not what happened the day after the presidential election.
"They were just talking about who got elected president, 'hey, guess who won the President? Our man won and they said, yeah, you can't talk about that', that's what I heard," Mitchell said. "How un-American can you get? That's the President of the United States."
According to Mitchell, the students claimed teachers told them not to talk about the election at school. Mitchell said that was unethical and in bad taste.
Dyer, commenting during a taping for Sunday's Northeast Georgia This Week (6:05 a.m. on WDUN NEWS TALK 550 and 9:05 a.m. on SPORTS RADIO 1240 THE TICKET), said she agrees with Mitchell that as long as its not disruptive, students should be allowed freedom of political expression.
"Certainly freedom of speech, discussion of issues, participation in learning about our government and the elections is something that we encourage and would not want to discourage in any way."
Dr. Merrianne Dyer
http://accesswdun.com/article/2008/11/215394