Welcome to Seminole County. As a high school science teacher here, I can assure you that we are not being held to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” standard when it comes to teaching evolution and I don’t hesitate to tell students/parents/other teachers and administrators that evolution is the framework on which all of biology is built.

Also, as one of the writers of the NGSSS in science, you should know that we worked extra diligently (in face of some internal and external opposition) to make sure that topics such as evolution, the big bang and the age of the universe were prominently featured.

The 4-year-old e-mail and blog post to which you link show a fairly standard boiler-plate response from the county office when the media attempts to contact teachers individually about pretty much any topic. For example, since I teach in Sanford, we were given a similar caveat about the Trayvon Martin case.

Believe me, Seminole schools would not be enjoying the level of success in terms of state and national recognition that they do if teaching something as important as evolution was being stifled by the school board.