Emails to Truth Matters

Dear Minister Paul,
Thank you very much for the opportunity to address this matter. I'm sorry to take so long to reply; this is a new email account and I'm not yet used to how it displays messages. I live in the community of Argyle Texas, and I have 2 daughters attending the Argyle High School. I was very upset by the inaccuracies in the Wall Street Journal article, and felt it necessary to address them where I could. To start at the beginning, there was a homecoming dance planned. In previous years there was no specific dress code for school dances, and the chaperones were asked to use their own good judgment regarding dresses and behavior. It had resulted in some minor issues in the past, so this year it was decided that there would be a written dress code. The administration put insufficient effort into generating an appropriate dress code for a social event like a dance, and when the time arrived without a "social event dress code" the decision was made by the school administration to apply the "school day" dress code, a standard that included things like "no open backs" and "minimum 3-inch shoulder straps" on all dresses and shirts. Now there are always kids who will push the envelope of what is allowable. This doesn't mean they are bad; it means they still need adult supervision. Still, even the ones who never broke the rules were shocked to find that the knee length party dress which showed NO cleavage was rejected at the door because the shoulder straps were only 1" wide. It was obvious immediately that this standard was inappropriate, and many of the teachers and parents put a lot of effort into sewing 3-inch wide ribbons onto shoulder straps right outside the door of the auditorium and making other adjustments so that the kids could attend the dance, but ultimately the hard stand on an inappropriate standard resulted in the dance being a social flop - which is what upset so many of the parents who had taken part in extensive preparations. When the community called the superintendent to task for ruining the dance, he presented two cases; first that the absence of a social event dress code left him no choice but to use the school day dress code. Second, that the kids had left the dance because he had forbidden "freak dancing", and that was why the event was a flop. I was at that meetingAbout the issue of "freak dancing". Superintendent Ceyanes had searched the internet and found a highly salacious video which he used to demonstrate what he was speaking of. The news media attending the meeting had been looking very bored until he started that video, but then they all jumped up like they'd been stung by bees. I'm amazed they didn't hit anyone swinging their cameras around. That was what they were there for. That was ALL the media was interested in, not the truth.There was no depiction of any freak dancing that took place in Argyle; however, I don't doubt that some of the kids were doing it. Nor do I doubt that the teachers and parents chaperoning the dance told them to stop it. The lie that I found so offensive is the claim that ANY parent endorsed "freak dancing". While some of the parents were furious enough at Mr. Ceyanes that they issued a blanket condemnation of his actions, none of them endorsed freak dancing. NONE of them. One of the parents even suggested offering dance lessons, a suggestion Mr. Ceyanes later put into action and claimed as his own idea. No community is perfect, and Argyle is no different. Nevertheless, we do NOT deserve the description of "Parents advocating Misbehavior". This is a good community that my wife of 28 years and I chose to settle in 12 years ago, and it bothers me to see it slandered by media more interested in titillation than truth. Thank you for hearing my side of this issue.Sincerely, Kevin Wadekwade79@gmail.com

PS. On the evening of the dance my middle daughter, a senior, heard about what was happening at the dance, got together with 4 of her friends and went (after asking and getting my permission) to a skating rink. They had a good time and returned, all completely sober, right around midnight. The majority of Argyle teens can be trusted to behave in just such an exemplary fashion. Also, Argyle School District NOW has a dress code for social events, one which seems a bit lax to me. Perhaps it's just me being old-fashioned, or perhaps Mr. Ceyanes after messing up in one direction has done a turnabout and it about to mess up in another. Time will tell.