Black Voices For Trump

We need more good Americans like this:

A contingent of the Black Voices for Trump coalition joined forces with Scott Presler to clean up Milwaukee and Kenosha, ravaged by destructive riots.

The coalition, whose mission is to encourage Black Americans to support the President, worked with Presler in Milwaukee for most of the day on Saturday.

And this:

Conservative activist Candace Owens says she wants to “free” black voters from the decades-long grip of the Democratic Party – and is urging them to support a new movement she’s calling “Blexit.”

“Blexit is a Renaissance,” Owens told Fox News, giving the backstory behind the campaign she launched over the weekend. “Blexit is the black exit from the Democratic Party. It’s the black exit from permanent victimhood, the black exit from the false idea that we are somehow separate from the rest of America.”

When your heart is full of patriotism, there is no room for hate.

Should I Be Worried About The Rona? Should You?

From the CDC, for as much as you're willing to trust them:

Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death. The number of deaths with each condition or cause is shown for all deaths and by age groups.

Coronavirus maybe killed 6% of the people who got it without any known comorbidities.  That means that 94% of the people who died had other health problems, an average of 2.6 additional health conditions.

Table 1 shows that not even 350 Americans under age 24 have died, yet we're shutting down schools across the country.  People my age and younger make up well under 25% of all US 'rona deaths.  And for this we've shut down commerce across the country.

This is insane.

John Muir

If you can't honor anyone who ever said anything against today's "protected groups", well, I guess we'll soon have no one to honor.  Perhaps that's the plan.

Michael Brune, the Sierra Club’s executive director, tells members that “it’s time to take down some of our own monuments.” Brune says members must now “reexamine our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy.”

It turns out that, as a young immigrant from Scotland, John Muir made “derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life,” Brune wrote in a statement on the Sierra Club’s website. “As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muir’s words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club.”

Do people's accomplishments mean nothing anymore?  Are black Americans truly harmed by John Muir's existence?  Does California have to denounce its own State Quarter?

This is foolishness not worthy of serious adults, which tells you all you need to know.

So Much Craziness

I can't even decide what to write about.  Even if I limit myself to just California and just education, "the crazy is strong here".  I'm a bit overwhelmed with the insanity.

1)  Schools can retroactively award diplomas to students who failed "because of the coronavirus shutdown".  How do we determine that?  Is "I didn't take it seriously because I knew the rules were being made up on the spot" count as "because of the coronavirus"?

2)  Ethnic studies may soon be a graduation requirement in California.

3)  Maybe the state will let some kids back in schools, but only if they stay together in "cohorts" all day and especially if they're special needs/special education, English learners, etc.  (How would this work in high school?)

4)  What the heck is going on with the Los Angeles teachers union?

I know what let's do.  Let's kill that goose that lays the golden eggs!  We can open it up and get all the eggs right now!

Phones Make It Harder For Kids To Learn

 This should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer:

Are smartphones making kids less intelligent, or at least making it tougher for them to actually master the material they are studying?  

That might well be the case, according to a study conducted at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

The reason: When completing homework and other assignments, students are apt to look things up on their phones, rather than learn and internalize the answer. That works for getting a quick correct answer, but it makes it a lot harder to recall the information when test time rolls around, the researchers found.  

Students who received higher homework grades, but lower exam scores—by as much as half to a full letter grade—were more likely to have Googled (or otherwise searched) their way to the homework answers rather than coming up with them themselves.

Students who look up answers tend to rapidly forget both the answer and the question itself, said Arnold Glass, the lead author and a professor of psychology at Rutgers. That means homework becomes a "meaningless ritual" rather than a learning opportunity—and the exam results show it.

I marvel at the stupidity of teachers who say kids shouldn't have to learn much can they can look up anything they need on their phones.  Makes you wonder about the teachers' critical thinking skills, no?

I Went Downtown Today

A friend from out of town was visiting today, and since he'd never been downtown or to Old Sacramento, that's where I took him.  I am livid at what criminals were allowed to do to my hometown:

Saturday night the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department stepped in and protected the Sacramento County District Attorney’s offices from rioters and vandals after Sacramento Police Department was apparently given a stand down order. The Sheriff’s offices and District Attorney’s office were vandalized Thursday night by Antifa, and the DA’s office set on fire.

Sacramento Police Department covered City Hall.

These are not peaceful protests as politicians and many in the media claim...

The property damage in Sacramento is significant, and largely because law enforcement was prevented from doing what they are trained to do and stopping the violence and vandalism.

Great job, sheriffs.  We may be on the West Coast, but Sacramento is not Portland or Seattle.  We should not let it become so.  But the mayor seems to be following in Mayor Wheeler of Portland's footsteps.

Driving downtown, block after block was blighted by boarded-up windows and vandalism.  ACAB?  No, AR(ioters)AB.  BLM?  Not if they're damaging property, and it's not just white people who think so.  Block after f***ing block.

Then I got to Old Town.  Even there, boarded up windows were de rigueur:

 

Fanny Ann's was boarded up.  Fat City was boarded up.  The Wells Fargo mini-museum was sealed tight.  Written on at least one building was "POC owned".  When business owners have to beg rioters to spare their property, something is wrong with the local government.

I agree with this sentiment from Instapundit today:

NOPE: Apparently, I “Owe” a “Debt” “to African-Americans.” Can’t say I buy that.

I feel like there’s going to be a big backlash to the post-George Floyd overreach. But, you know, the “activists” don’t want progress. They want to make demands, and feel powerful. That they’ve managed to divide and paralyze a country that, right after George Floyd’s death, was horrified and ready to take action doesn’t bother them; a cynic might suggest that this was the goal all along.

To his credit, as I’ve noted, Trump isn’t playing tit-for-tat here, but is transcending the hate by stressing inclusion. As he said in his inaugural address, when your heart is full of patriotism, there’s no room for hate. Which may explain why there’s so much room for hate on the left.

Yeah, what he said.

 

Back To School Night

 Which makes more sense to you regarding Back To School Night?

1)  The online version of what we've always done.  We'll have 10-minute "class periods" in Zoom in the evening, with 5 minutes in between classes, and parents will show up online to hear our spiels.

2)  Record some kind of video presentation for parents that they can watch whenever.  These will be collected and the links put in one place so they can be found.  

I honestly don't see how anyone could prefer method 1, but that's what's being gently pushed; option 2 will be allowed.  I didn't even mention some of the "catches" for option 1, catches that will make that process even more difficult for parents.

I understand our administration's desire for parents to see a real person instead of a video, but given only 10 minutes per class, with people trickling in, and having connectivity problems--or having 2 kids at the same school and thus not being able to see both kids' 1st period teachers, for example--I have to believe that accessing a video, on their own time, would be preferable for most parents.  My plan is to make a video for each of the 3 courses I teach.  My primary goal during normal BTS Night is to convince the parents that their kids are in good hands when they're in my class, and that will be my goal here as well.  And if such a video takes more than 10 minutes, then so be it--I won't be shoehorned into that 10 minutes.

What do you think?  As a parent would you rather see option 1 or option 2 at your child's school?

Update, 9/1/20:  I am posting videos, one for each course I teach.  If you'd like to see them, they're on my YouTube page.  As of the moment of this update I still have to make one for the 3rd course.

Race and Rioting

Representative Deberry is a Democrat, is black, and is old enough that he actually participated in what we today call the Civil Rights Movement.  Just for that last part the country owes him a debt of eternal gratitude.

Listen to his words.  This video is probably the most powerful thing you'll watch today, even if you watch highlights of this week's Republican convention.  Listen to his words.  The video is only 7 minutes long, I assure you it will be time well-spent.

 

One of my favorite descriptions in this video, in reference to the nonviolent protests that were the hallmark of the Civil Rights Movement, is "They did it by standing like men and women of integrity and class and common sense and values."  Amen.

Deberry mentioned that rioting was not what he was there for, not what his father was there for, not what Dr. King was there for.  Here is Dr. King in his own words:

 

Rioting isn't going to work in America.  Dr. King was right then and right today when he said that riots are ultimately self-defeating.

It Almost Smelled Like Air Today

For several days the air quality was so bad here--we were getting smoke from fires in Napa 90 minutes away--and the temperatures were well over 100 degrees to boot.

Yesterday we got a breeze that started clearing out the gray filth in the skies, and at lunchtime today the temperature was probably about 90 degrees.  Several of us were picnicking under the big tree at lunch time today.  

During in-person school we only get 35 min for lunch; I sure do enjoy my hour lunch during online school!

Calculus Class

My calculus class started yesterday.  The instructor held a 2-hour Zoom class and recorded it, I watched it after work.

Let's just say I wasn't impressed.  I'm sure part of it was the instructor's lack of familiarity with the technological tools he was trying to use (probably from home, as there was a fake background behind him), but some of it was just poor teaching.

As I reminded someone today, there's a difference between a "professor" and a "teacher".

I'm hoping it gets better from here.

Lockdowns Are Probably Permanent Because Politicians Have Painted Themselves Into A Corner and Don't Know What Else To Do

 Gee, ya think?

There wasn’t time to gather that sort of evidence: Faced with a poorly understood and rapidly spreading pathogen, they prioritized saving lives.

Five months later, the evidence suggests lockdowns were an overly blunt and economically costly tool. They are politically difficult to keep in place for long enough to stamp out the virus. The evidence also points to alternative strategies that could slow the spread of the epidemic at much less cost. As cases flare up throughout the U.S., some experts are urging policy makers to pursue these more targeted restrictions and interventions rather than another crippling round of lockdowns...

Yet at the outset, their goals were unclear, a confusion aggravated by the multitude of terms used. Officials sometimes said their goal was “bending” or “flattening the curve,” which originally meant spreading infections over time so the daily peak never overwhelmed hospitals. At other times they described their aims as “mitigation” or “containment” or “suppression,” often interchangeably.

“There have been few attempts to truly define the goal, and partly it’s because policy makers and epidemiologists haven’t thought well enough about the vocabulary to define what they mean or want,” said Dr. Mina, the Harvard epidemiologist.

We've long since left the reality of science! and are operating purely in the realm of politics and "doing something".  The lockdowns have been "overly blunt and costly".

Were the unintended but entirely predictable consequences of lockdowns justified?

When policymakers across the country decided to “lock down” in response to the March outbreak of the novel coronavirus, they took a leap into the unknown. Not only did we know little about COVID-19 itself at that time, but we knew almost nothing about how shutting down nearly all of society would affect people.

Policymakers focused on their models predicting how lockdowns could help limit the spread of COVID-19; an important factor, to be sure. So, too, many acknowledged the negative economic ramifications of lockdowns. But in the months since, we’ve seen many other dire consequences stem from the unprecedented shutdown of society.

Future public health policy should take these four life-threatening unintended consequences of COVID-19 lockdowns into account.

If the press were ever truly interested in government mistakes, they need not look far for the biggest story of the century thus far.   Some might argue that the biggest mistake of the century so far was the belief in WMD in Iraq, but I've addressed that enough in the early years of this blog that I don't need to rehash it here.  Bottom line:  worldwide government responses to the 'rona were hamhanded, flawed, and not scientifically justified.  Freedom, including that to live your life and make a living, has been seriously curtailed around the world.  Do we live to do what government wants, or is government supposed to do what we want?

If, in trying to excuse the damage that's been done, someone were at least to admit that "mistakes were made", my response would be "No feces, detective."

Now fix the mistakes.  But they can't, because to do so they'd have to admit that they made mistakes.  Politicians don't do that.

Amended Army Football Schedule

 8 home games out of 11?  We might have a winning season! 

I've never even heard of Mercer.  And in my day we used to play a school called Colgate!

Running the Numbers

I'm always running numbers of some kind in my head.

For example, when I travel, I constantly try to estimate my arrival time--to the minute.  Yes, I update my predictions based on changes in conditions, like encountering unexpected lane closures or accidents or something, but that should be allowed.  I enjoy the game of seeing how close I can get, and if my prediction is more accurate than my GPS's.

I also like to estimate how much gas I'll need to fill up the Battlestar.  It's got a 26-gallon tank, and the analog dial gas gauge isn't as precise as I'd like it to be.  Given those two conditions, I give myself an admittedly generous +/- 1/2 gallon for my guesstimate, and I almost always choose a whole number figure.  On those rare occasions when I don't choose a whole number, it's because I can't choose between two numbers so I choose the half-gallon in the middle.

Today when I rolled up to the gas pump I estimated 18 gallons.  I put the nozzle in, started pumping, and flipped the tab on the nozzle so that it would automatically shut off when filled.

17.999 gallons.  

Should've bought a lottery ticket.

Educating Kids During The Rona

 This is funny in part because it's so cliche; I could almost believe this is a verbatim transcript!

A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK SUMMARIZES AN NPR SEGMENT ON EDUCATION:

Hilarious NPR, last week’s edition. They had an hour-long segment on learning pods. Participants: Host (white woman), Black Woman Activist, Asian Woman Parent, School-System Man.

Slightly editorialized (but true!) recollections below.

Host: In wealthy areas, parents get together and organize learning pods. What do we make of it?

School-System Man: Inequitable! Inappropriate! Bad! We do not support it!

Asian Woman Parent: Equity requires that we form these pods to educate our own children! Otherwise, only the rich can get education! Rich bad!

Host: Rich bad.

School-System Man: Rich horrible! They withdraw kids from public schools during the pandemic, so schools have less money!

Asian Woman Parent: We have no choice. You are not teaching.

Host: But what are you doing for the equity?

Asian Woman Parent: Why are the parents supposed to be doing something for the equity? That’s why we pay taxes, so professionals do something!

School-System Man: We cannot fix equity if you are clandestinely educating your own children, but not everyone else’s children!

Asian Woman Parent: The proper solution would have been to end the pandemic. But Trump did not end the pandemic. So, we must do learning pods. As soon as the pandemic is over, we’ll get back to normal, and everyone will catch up.

Everyone [with great relief]: Trump bad. Bad.

Black Woman Activist: No, wait a minute. This sounds as though in a regular school year, black children get good education. And they are getting terrible education! Unacceptable!

Host: Bad Trump!

Black Woman Activist: Foggeraboutit! It’s not Trump! It’s always been terrible! Black children are dumped into horrible public schools, where nobody is teaching them! So, my organization is now helping organize these learning pods for minority kids everywhere.

School-System Man [cautiously]: This is only helping Trump…

Black Woman Activist: Forget Trump! Don’t tell me black kids get no education because things are not normal now. When things were normal, their education was just as bad!

School-System Man: Whut??? How dare you! Our public schools are the best thing that ever happened to black children.

Asian Woman Parent: I’ll second that. Public schools in my neighborhood are just svelte.

Black Woman Activist: That’s the point! You live in a rich suburb, and your kids get a great public school! Black kids don’t!

Asian Woman Parent: If Trump managed the pandemic properly, we would not be having this conversation.

Host: Bad Trump!

Everyone: Bad Trump!

The end.

#OrangeManBad.

I truly don't understand how people can take NPR seriously.

(It's so good I cut/paste the entire Instapundit post.)

Return on Investment at US Colleges and Universities

While our service academies were not included in this report (we didn't pay tuition in dollars, but in time and youth), I notice that schools with "maritime" in their names fare very well in "net present value" rankings.  Toss in the US Merchant Marine Academy as well.

CSU Maritime is less than 90 minutes from me.  Students can easily leave there making about what I do.

"Reid" What The Founders Read, And See How Far We've Fallen

Is common sense no longer so common at our universities and colleges?

The core idea of common sense realism is that there are self-evident truths and that self-evident truths are known to be true by means of common sense; common sense enables us to know what is self-evidently true.  Read the Founders, and you will find them constantly referring to self-evident truths.  They got their understanding of self-evidence from Reid.  Because the Founders' thinking relied on Reid's conception of self-evident truth, what Harvard and Princeton and the others were aiming at in those days was teaching American college students how to think like an American.

We have heard the words "We hold these Truths to be self-evident ..." all our lives.  To approach the Founders' understanding of self-evident truth is to approach the heart of the American founding.  Jefferson and the other Founders held that "all men are created equal" is self-evidently true.  According to Lincoln, it is "an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times."  For more than a hundred years, American colleges dedicated themselves to teaching the philosophy the Founders and Lincoln were relying on in making that declaration.

Things have changed at Harvard, Princeton, and the other ones, too...

American higher education was once dedicated to teaching young Americans to think like an American.  Today, students are taught anti-Americanism.  That is the explanation for all those fabulously privileged Americans, many of whom are graduates of America's most prestigious universities, demonstrating their violent rejection of the American way of life by rioting in the streets and attacking statues of Jefferson and Washington.  They could not possibly make their anti-Americanism any clearer — and, for the most part, they were taught their anti-Americanism in American schools and universities. 

We can, and should, do better.  It's just common sense.

Anti-what?

 The Facebook comment mentioned in this post is sadly true:

MASS INDOCTRINATION: EXCLUSIVE: A look inside a mandatory ‘anti-racism’ course. As a friend on Facebook noted, “anti-racism” is like “anti-fascism” and anti-matter — just the same thing with the charges reversed.

After The First Full Week

I got through the first full week of school.

A small number of us are working on campus rather than from home.  It's nice to get out of the house, not have to cart my materials home, not have to give up my kitchen table, and get to each lunch with other adults.  We were picnicking under a large shade tree, now that we have a full hour for lunch, but the 100+ degree heat and the raining ash from fires 75 miles away have forced us into a classroom to eat.

It's was just the first week of school, and a number of us still anticipate a dropoff in a few weeks, but in-person attendance has been surprisingly high.  That's good, because the instructions for attendance that we've been given seem a little shady to me--if a student logs into Zoom, present.  If a student contacts us about missing a class, present.  If a student does neither of those but completes the assignment for that class period, present.

In one class today I got some interesting feedback.  I record lectures, give plenty of class time for my students to watch them, then we discuss, work problems, ask and answer questions, etc.  I don't believe in giving students lecture notes, I insist that they write them--but today's video was just the handwritten slides I'd use for instruction with very little amplification.  It was an 8 minute video, I gave 20 min to watch and copy down all the slides (it was necessary for students to pause the video, a lot, in order to copy all those notes), and we spent the rest of the period discussing.  When I asked which method they preferred, it was 2 or 3 to 1 in favor of the short video with lots of in-class instruction rather than having an entire lecture recorded.  Perhaps I'll try that method for another week with that same class and see if they still like it; if they do, I'll try it with my classes in another subject and see what they think.

None of us math teachers really has a way to give tests that have even a modicum of cheating prevention, so while I know what I'm going to do, I'm not happy about it.  

I have a student teacher.  His credential program is preparing him and his classmates for distance teaching, but he said they aren't learning much about in-person teaching.  Today I drew his attention to a couple verbal management strategies that I learned 20+ years ago and still use effectively, he seems to appreciate such practical lessons.  Oh, you want to know one of those verbal strategies?  I can still quote my own instructor verbatim:  "Simultaneously tell students what you want them to do, and what you don't want them to do, using concrete, kinesthetic language."  Example:  "Please raise your hand in Zoom without calling out when you have an answer."  (Bonus technique: the word "without" is very powerful.)  In class, you might say something like, "Please take out your homework without talking."  That's very clear.  "Be quiet" isn't clear--is whispering allowed?  It's not "concrete".  Things like that.  You non-teachers may not think these are a big deal, but with teenagers, especially?  Oh yeah, big deal.

Anyway, Student Teacher's roommate was exposed to someone with the rona, so Student Teacher is isolating at home until test results come back (perhaps a week).  His credential courses are all online already, so no schooling lost!  And as for our classes, he's still in the "watch and learn" phase.  If he were in the "teaching" phase I could email him anything that I'd normally give him in class.  So, all good.

I'm learning how to use Google Classroom.  It's not my ideal tool, for sure, but perhaps it'll be more useful to me as I learn more of its functionality.  Given that so many of my school's teachers have been using it for a couple of years now, I'm surprised at the several seniors I have who don't know how to do simple things (e.g., attach their homework to submit it).  I guess we'll learn it together.

This distance teaching deal is more work than in-class teaching, and I start a 4-unit math class at the local community college this upcoming week.  Joy.

Who Bears The Lion's Share Of The Blame For The Lack Of Civility In Government Today?

Remember this quote?

“You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about. That’s why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again. But until then, the only thing that the Republicans seem to recognize and respect is strength.”

That was from Hillary Clinton.  Can you imagine if Republicans said something like this?  Or said Democrats ran the car into the ditch and, while they might stand on the side of the road drinking Slurpees, they shouldn't get in the way of the people getting the car out of the ditch?  That was Barack Obama, arguably the worst president in US history--making Jimmy Carter happy, indeed.

Democrats are the ones cheering on rioting and looting in the country.

Democrats are the ones running most of the cities and many of the states that are having rioting and looting problems.

Democrats are the ones that call anyone who doesn't agree with them a "racist" or a "bigot" or a "hater".

Democrats are the ones who had a show-trial impeachment that they knew was baseless.

The Democrats are the ones who engage in conspiracy-theories worthy of Art Bell--Russian collusion, destroying the post office, the president won't leave office if he's not reelected, etc.

The Democrats are the ones who outright lie about the president, as they do when they intentionally misconstrue the president's remarks about the Charlottesville race issue and Confederate statues, and as the NYT did recently when making it appear that an FBI agent was being arrested because he was involved in Russian collusion when in fact he was arrested for faking warrants to further the fake Russian collusion narrative.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

When you see the depth of their dishonesty and the cravenness of their tactics, maybe it's time to start believing Hillary.  Maybe we can't make peace with the other side.  And since problems and bad news seldom get better over time, maybe we should have the coming civil war now rather than later, so there will be less damage.

What Are They Afraid Of?

I don't consent to being recorded by others.  I can't imagine any good that could come from such recordings.  Besides, If I do something I shouldn't, there are 30+ witnesses in a class!

Parents and other visitors are always welcome in my class, in-person or virtual.  I want my administrators to come in and see the work that my students and I do!  I'm confident enough in the work I do that I don't ask them to schedule a time, they're welcome to come in any time.

We in education often encourage parents to monitor their children's internet usage, so how can we turn around and explicitly tell them they shouldn't monitor their children's Zoom classes?  What are the teachers and administrators in Rutherford County, Tennessee, afraid of?

Parents of students who attend Rutherford County Schools (RCS) must agree not to monitor their child’s online classroom sessions.

Officials at all county schools are asking parents to sign forms agreeing not to watch these virtual classes.

The Tennessee Star received a copy of such a form this week.

“RCS strives to present these opportunities in a secure format that protects student privacy to the greatest extent possible, however because these meetings will occur virtually RCS is limited in its ability to fully control certain factors such as non-student observers that may be present in the home of a student participating in the virtual meeting,” according to the form.

“RCS strongly discourages non student observation of online meetings due to the potential of confidential information about a student being revealed.”

The form asks parents for their signature and warns that “violation of this agreement may result in RCS removing my child from the virtual meeting"...

“We are aware of the concern that has been raised about this distance-learning letter that was sent to parents. The intent was not to prevent parents from being involved with their children during distance learning, but it was intended to protect the academic privacy of other students in the classroom who are visible during certain virtual class sessions,” (district spokesman) Evans said.

I call bovine doo-doo on their reasoning.  What "confidential" information is revealed in class that's OK for other students to hear but not ok for adults to hear?  And remember, as for seeing and hearing the students in a Zoom class, we're not talking about some generic stalker-y member of the public watching schoolchildren, we're talking about people in the home watching the class that their child or sibling is enrolled in.  You'd think teachers and administrators would welcome such involvement and concern.

I'll pause for a moment and remind everyone that elementary school teachers and high school teachers see many things differently.  Sometimes when I interact with a "teacher" on the internet, I don't think about that difference.  For example, I recently saw an Instagram post in which a teacher said that she doesn't care if a student is in bed, is wrapped in a blanket, is eating a bowl of cereal, isn't entirely dressed, she's just glad they made it to Zoom class.  I replied that she should have some standards, that having a class of students looking at a peer in bed might be awkward for some (it would be for me!), and that I require students at least to have a shirt on.  It didn't occur to me until later that perhaps she was an elementary teacher, and if that's the case I can see where her "just glad they made it" might be different from my "let's be somewhat mature" belief.

Would the district policy be reasonable if it's an elementary school district?  I still say no, but the point is moot--the district has elementary, middle, and high schools, and the letter went to everyone.

I have to believe there will be enough blowback that they'll retreat on that policy.  It's a bad policy, and looks even worse.