If the administrators at the insanely expensive school (the parents of 1,700 students pay tuition for all grades of $65,540 a year) are not embarrassed by that headline, they should be. Morons.
The school told families this week that “students who feel too emotionally distressed” after the election can get excused from classes, and—I find this incredible—psychologists will be available during the week to provide counseling for the tender souls who have presumably been told by their teachers and parents that they will be sent off to work camps and their parents will be executed in Trump wins.
The message to parents “acknowledges that this may be a high-stakes and emotional time for our community. No matter the election outcome will create space to provide students with the support they may need.” Excused absences will be allowed on Wednesday or whatever day the election results are announced for those students who are unable to “fully engage in classes.”
Any student who doesn’t immediately recognize this as a “Get Out Of School Free” ticket is too dim-witted to be in school.
Jerry Seinfeld, who pulled his sons out of the school when they were enrolled there, is quoted in the Times article (gift link!), scoffed, “What kind of lives have these people led that makes them think that this is the right way to handle young people? To encourage them to buckle. This is the lesson they are providing, for ungodly sums of money.”
Bingo. Our schools are raising weenies, and not only elitist, private schools like this one. They are also deliberately raising progressives and future totalitarian “useful idiots,” who will have no respect for the United States or its system of government, and who see dissent from “the right” political ideology and national policy as frightening. It’s democracy! How terrifying!
From the age of 10 on, I always found Presidential political campaigns and elections educational and fascinating. I barely understood the issues then, and didn’t approach really comprehending the differences between the candidates until I was in college, and often not even then. But my teachers weren’t trying to push their partisan views on me, either, and if one had, I know that my father would have been raising hell with the teacher, in the school, before the school board and as a town meeting member.
If students are so emotionally invested in a Presidential election, which should be a wonderful educational opportunity, that they can’t function when their favorite candidate loses, then their school is irresponsible and abusing its authority. It is not promoting an “ethical culture.” It is promoting hate, fear and division.
Addendum: This time I read some of the reader comments on the Times article—usually I don’t bother. Here is the one kind of reader the Times attracts: he wrote in part, “All school kids in the US will continue to be educated in the country with the highest incidence of school shootings, so the real likelihood of them being “coddled” is probably lower than them being shot.” What schools did this hysteric go to? The chances of a student in the US being a victim in a school shooting has been conservatively estimated to be 614,000,000 to one.
_________________
Pointer: Ann Althouse
Ethics Alarms 
The chances of a student in the US being a victim in a school shooting has been conservatively estimated to be 614,000,000 to one.
Maybe the reader in question lives in a high-crime inner city neighborhood where mothers put their children in bathtubs for fear of stray gunfire.
But even in those neighborhoods, schools shootings are rare.
A classic “think of the children” rationalization. “Even on dead child is not acceptable.”
one, not on
But does it really matter where the child died?
Is there something hallowed about school grounds?
Can children murdered outside iof school be brought back to life if we gather all seven dragon balls and summon ShenRon?
Those kids don’t matter. They’re black kids killed by black gang bangers who have no option in an oppressive society other than to engage in gang warfare with other black gang bangers. Don’t you have any empathy?
And anyway, if TRUMP hadn’t taken away the reproductive rights of the mothers of those little nappy headed children that got shot by the poor gang bangers, they’d have been aborted and the mothers would have been justly free to go to Harvard and then become managing partners at Goldman Sachs!
“Any student who doesn’t immediately recognize this as a “Get Out Of School Free” ticket is too dim-witted to be in school.”
And that’s the objective. The kids will use the get out of school free pass and the progressives can report that almost all the students needed counseling because of Trump’s election.
So, it’s back to the morning after the 2016 election. It’s like Groundhog Day. The left half the country will throw a hissy fit if Trump wins. The unstated point of this announcement is that the day off and counselors will only be available if the sainted one doesn’t win. Gasp. If Harris wins, all the teachers will be leading all the students in joyful celebration of the party’s having prevailed. I wonder whether any pollster or prognosticator is tracking these sorts of announcements and adding extra weight to a suspected Trump victory on Tuesday.
“If students are so emotionally invested in a Presidential election, which should be a wonderful educational opportunity, that they can’t function when their favorite candidate wins, then their school is irresponsible and abusing its authority.”
I assumed the school was thinking the students wouldn’t be able to function if their preferred candidate loses.
Fixed. I had an old girlfriend who called that the “JMS”—Jack Marshall Syndrome—when I say the exact opposite of what I meant.
“25% of adults say they’re experiencing ‘electsomnia’: 3 simple ways to get better sleep now and after the election day“
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/02/3-ways-to-get-better-sleep-if-election-stress-keeps-you-up-at-night.html
Seems some these kids have already become adults. I’m concerned about who will win the election but I’m not losing any sleep over the potential outcome.
Sorry. Gotta say it.
So what will be the logical “intersection” of Timmy’s tampon dispensers in the boys’ bathrooms and the ‘stunning and brave’ p*ssy hats on 6 November?
Sounds like a meme just waiting to happen.
If you remember 2016, major universities (such as the University of Michigan) opened up counselling services by the students traumatized by the election. Faculty were expected to be flexible with assignments and due dates.*
Huh, that didn’t happen in 2008 or 2012. It didn’t happen in 2020. I wonder what was different about 2016?
*Except for the engineers and physical science majors. They better show up for lab and get their reports in on time. Their TA is NOT going to show up for an extra, unpaid day because you got a bad case of ‘the feels’.
To hear them say it, Trump colluded with the Russians®™ to steal the 2016 election.
I wonder why so many people were emotionally invested in Hillary Clinton.