A school district in Alaska says it made a mistake after placing a disclaimer on a flyer containing the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence that said the district does not endorse the documents.
Anchorage School District had a disclaimer on the flyers that stated the district “does not endorse these materials or the viewpoints expressed.” One parent was surprised to see this after her child brought the pamphlet home after it was handed out to her in class.
The parent, Karen Waldron, wrote on Facebook, “Today my daughter brought home a pamphlet with the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. On the back was a sticker saying that the Anchorage School District ‘does not endorse the materials or viewpoints expressed in them.’”
“I was honestly stunned,” Waldron said. “These aren’t controversial documents, they are the foundation of our country and what our students are supposed to be learning about. Why would a school need to distance itself from the very principles we are built on?”
“I’ll be asking the district for an explanation,” she added.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, a spokesperson for the district said the sticker was mistakenly placed on the pamphlets. The stickers are meant to differentiate between official district information and information provided by outside organizations.
“This was our mistake,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “The request that came in wasn’t for a flyer or poster and shouldn’t have been processed through that system. We will be following up directly with the requestor to make things right.”
“The U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence are an important part of what students learn in social studies,” the spokesperson added. “These founding documents are taught in every school and reflect the values we want every student to understand.”
