Dear Gettysburg Connection,

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the discussion surrounding Radium Girls at the September 15 Upper Adams School Board meeting. I am writing not because I believe profanity belongs in our school plays, nor because I object to anyone holding deeply felt religious beliefs. I am writing because I believe the way this situation was handled unnecessarily hurt the very people who should have been at the center of the discussion: our students.

There was a better way.

Last year, my son Jack participated in a school play. There was a word in the script that he did not feel comfortable saying. He asked whether he could avoid saying it, and he was granted permission to do so.

That was simple. His beliefs and comfort level were respected without requiring every other student to conform to them.

That experience leaves me with an important question after listening to the September 15 meeting: Did anyone ask?

Before a motion was made publicly requiring the removal of language from Radium Girls, did anyone simply approach the administration or theater director and say, “We have concerns about several phrases in this script. Would you please reconsider them, particularly given the audience for a high-school production?”

If the play had already gone through the district’s newly established vetting process, why wasn’t it returned to the administration for further review?

Why wasn’t the administration asked to consider whether a few substitutions might make the production more comfortable for a broader audience?

Why did this need to become a lengthy public debate about sin, the First Commandment, Christendom, religious beliefs, and what constitutes an “irreverent” use of a religious name?

Those are very different conversations.

I respect a parent’s right to tell a child, “Our family believes saying that is wrong.” I respect a student’s right to say, as my son effectively did, “I am not comfortable saying that.”

But during this meeting, students watched adults publicly debate what their play should contain, what religious families should find acceptable, and whether particular words violate religious teachings. At one point, a board member explicitly said he would consider saying the language in question a “sin.” Another referred to the First Commandment and the longstanding beliefs of Christendom.

Regardless of anyone’s intentions, imagine experiencing that discussion as one of the students preparing to put on this production.

These students did not choose Radium Girls in defiance of their community. The administration explained during the meeting that the play had been deliberately selected and vetted following concerns surrounding the previous year’s production. Administrators had read the script. They knew what was in it. They believed it was an appropriate historical play with significant educational merit.

If board members believed that process had nevertheless missed something, they had every right to raise the concern.

But raising a concern is different from immediately imposing a solution.

The board could have said, “Please take another look at these six phrases.”

It could have asked the director whether substitutions were possible.

It could have asked whether students who were personally uncomfortable saying particular words could be accommodated, just as my son was.

It could have referred the matter back to the administration and allowed the educators entrusted with the production to address the concern.

Instead, the board ultimately approved the play only on the condition that it remove “all expletives” and “all disrespectful or irreverent uses of religious names.”

That wording troubles me. Who determines what constitutes an irreverent use of a religious name? Which religious understanding determines reverence? What happens when sincere members of our community disagree?

Those questions are precisely why I believe the board should have proceeded much more carefully.

I want to emphasize something because I do not want my position misunderstood: I do not condone profanity, and I personally do not condone taking the Lord’s name in vain.

But my personal religious convictions are mine. They guide what I say, what I teach my children, and what I choose to participate in. I do not believe my convictions give me the right to require every other Upper Adams family to practice them in exactly the same way.

Our community includes Christians with differing beliefs, people of other faiths, and people with no religious faith. Our public schools belong to all of their children.

There was room here for kindness, conversation, accommodation, and compromise. Jack’s experience last year shows that.

Ask.

Talk to the students.

Talk to the director.

Talk to the administration.

Explain the concern.

Give the people entrusted with educating our children an opportunity to respond.

And if necessary, seek legal guidance before turning a concern about several lines in a high-school play into a public discussion about which expressions constitute sin or violate a commandment.

Our students deserved that kind of thoughtful process.

They deserved to see adults model how people with different beliefs resolve disagreements respectfully.

Most of all, they deserved to know that Radium Girls was still their production—not a battleground for the adults around them.

I hope the board will reflect not only on what it decided on September 15, but on how it arrived at that decision. Because the process we model for our children matters every bit as much as the words we ask them to say on a stage.

Jennifer A. Kane
Biglerville, PA
Biglerville High School Parent