{"id":1045,"date":"2009-05-26T18:21:01","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T22:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1045"},"modified":"2009-06-27T13:25:24","modified_gmt":"2009-06-27T17:25:24","slug":"followup-on-fl-virtual-school-and-evolution-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1045","title":{"rendered":"Followup on FL Virtual School and evolution assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St. Petersburg Times education blog The Gradebook asked the folks at Florida Virtual School<\/a> about the issue of students using the online school to opt out of course material<\/a> they or their families don’t like. Unfortunately, I’m still just a bit confused. The blog posts says:<\/p>\n

In response to Monday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Gradebook post, the Florida Virtual School just issued a statement saying its teachers do not allow FVS students to opt out of lessons in which they disagree \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in this case, one involving evolution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That sounds fine. But then the post goes on to include a direct quote from FVS Chief Learning Officer Pam Birtolo:<\/p>\n

“Just as they can in traditional public schools, parents have the right to request that their child be allowed to opt-out of lessons with which they disagree.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s odd. Birtolo then goes on to say in the quoted statement:<\/p>\n

“We do not modify our course content or the relevant tests based upon requests by parents or students. When these special circumstances arise, parents are notified that their child will receive a zero for the missed lessons.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, I don’t understand. Parents can ask to opt-out, but the school does not modify course content based on those requests. Something doesn’t compute for me here.<\/p>\n

It also needs to be pointed out that parents actually do not<\/strong> have the right to request an opt-out for anything and everything. Florida Statutes allow for only two opt-outs in science courses:<\/p>\n

1003.42(3)<\/a>
\nAny student whose parent makes written request to the school principal shall be exempted from the teaching of reproductive health or any disease, including HIV\/AIDS, its symptoms, development, and treatment.<\/p>\n

1003.47(1)(a)<\/a>
\nNo surgery or dissection shall be performed on any living mammalian vertebrate or bird. Dissection may be performed on nonliving mammals or birds secured from a recognized source of such specimens and under supervision of qualified instructors. Students may be excused upon written request of a parent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently, the FVS student in this specific case did the assignment, so the whole issue of opt-out in this instance is moot. But we here at Florida Citizens for Science have been hearing about schools throughout the state dealing with opt-out requests concerning the teaching of evolution. One such case is here<\/a>. The bottom line is that there are no legally recognized justifications for allowing evolution lesson opt-outs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The St. Petersburg Times education blog The Gradebook asked the folks at Florida Virtual School about the issue of students using the online school to opt out of course material they or their families don’t like. Unfortunately, I’m still just … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-gR","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1044,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1044","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":0},"title":"Creationism OK at Florida Virtual School?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Virtual School is a popular way to attend school in our state without having to step into a classroom. Students can take online courses to supplement their current traditional school workload, or students can take pretty much all of their courses online in the homeschooling tradition. According to this\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 15 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 15 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1044#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":379,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=379","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":1},"title":"Breathtaking inanity","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm embarrassed. Sure, the Taylor County school board was apparently the first to pass a resolution complaining about evolution (previous post here), but they're not the only one. Two more counties passed resolutions, too: Baker County and Holmes County. The Baker County board meeting minutes from Dec. 17 say on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":944,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=944","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":2},"title":"Leave the evolution education controversy behind","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida State University physics professor Paul Cottle has a guest post over at The Gradebook blog about Senator Wise's antievolution bill. Most importantly, Senator Wise's proposal does not address the concerns that most of Florida's parents have concerning evolution education: the possibility that a science teacher (or any teacher) could\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=944#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":407,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=407","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":3},"title":"Washington County: school board #9 on the anti-evolution train","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Washington County school board -- yes, another county in North Florida -- is apparently the latest school board to adopt an anti-evolution resolution. Unfortunately, the school system website doesn't list board meeting agendas anywhere that I could find. I found out about the resolution through one of my regular\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":388,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=388","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":4},"title":"David Gibbs strikes again","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"David Gibbs III of the Christian Law Association had submitted a legal memo to the Florida Board of Education a while ago trying to claim that evolution is a \"belief system.\" (previous post on who this guy is here.) Well, he's still around and making some noise again. According to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":429,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=429","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":5},"title":"Discovery Institute’s finger in the pie","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gradebook notes that the Discovery Institute is fully well aware of what's going on here in Florida (who would think they didn't?) and is offering advice to anyone seeking it. The Discovery Institute, the Seattle think tank best known for its support of intelligent design, has entered the fray\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}