BSVDWatch.org

It is beyond my understanding that ANY school system, including board and adminstrators, could consider allowing this kind of forum to take place in the school setting. Even the selection of panelists seems to me to have been done without a serious consideration of what effect this forum would have on the students, the school system, and the community.

As a retired health educator for BVSD my biggest complaint is that the speakers went beyond the guidelines we have set up for high school discussion. Had the students provided parental permission to attend, this ordeal could have been prevented. There may have been a bit too much humor, but I found some of the information presented to be fascinating.

My biggest concern is that some of the panelists related some very vivid images that might have otherwise not need to be related to get the message across. Specifically, the "storyteller" panelist. As I read, I also felt that most of the panelists were deciding what to say as they spoke....and I'm afraid that some were a bit impulsive with some of the details that flew from their brains to the mouth....as if they were trying too hard to relate to what they thought the students wanted to hear. I say this from the POV of a young public middle school teacher.

I came to this site because I like to keep an open mind as to what both sides of the debate are talking about. I occasionally listen to <quietly> Bill O'Rielly </>. He is running hard with soundbites from this lecture, and damning the school and school board for their "outrageous - villainous - inappropriate" material being flung at our high school kids in these whacked out "Progressive/Liberal" communities. But even his 2 minute set of clips sounded pieced together.
Now that I have come here and read the full text.......
....
I am ashamed by those of you here (particularly responders 1-5) who clearly either didn't read the full lecture text, or tried to by cannot see reality anymore due to the blinders you stumble through life wearing.
This was an EXCELLENT lecture set on youth sex and drug use. Very honest and open, backed by statistics and couched in real-life situations.
Kudos to the Boulder High School Board! If only the majority of America cared enough about kids and teens, then likely we would have much less in the way of drug-abuse, abortions, teen mothers, etc...etc....etc...

P.S. - Yet again I have checked the backgroud facts, and found O'Rielly to be a filthy liar and coward.

After listening today to Bill O'Reilly I decided to read the transcript. The discussion was very one sided and pro-sex and drugs. But it also was Pro-information and education. The general assumption here I got was that kids do drugs and have sex, so lets discuss our feelings about it and how we deal with the issues related to doing it.
Nothing all that bad about that. I am not offended by this panel. I am offended by the O'Reilly manipulation of the facts to make his listeners angry. What he presented o n the air was very misleading and inaccurate. But is this panel appropriate for high school? I don't know if I can answer that. Some high school kids probably could of handled it. but many probably cannot and may have taken home the wrong message from this.
Terry in Portland

The fact that 'some' students were required to attend just goes to show how some people try to indoctrinate the young people in this country while at the same time talk about the 'religious right'. Those on the 'religious right' may be indoctrinating, but ht ekids they do it to are theirs. The public schools have gone so far to the left, they can't go further. If I had a child in this school system, I would pull them out and home school. If I was in the schoold district, I would be out for the jobs of the idiots who put this on. This is a clear case of an indoctrination program gone aray. Someone save us from these people PLEASE. If you live in Boulder rise up now!!!

First, I have read the entire transcript and all comments. Here are mine:

1. As the final high schooler bravely noted, this panel was completely one-sided. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise. Topics aside, I've never seen such poor education. Instead, it should be called "indoctrination" for its one-sidedness. The irony here is too thick, for the message that "one must make a responsible choice" was repeated like a broken record. Here, there would appear to be only one choice - not even real dialogue and instead only monologue.

2. Another bit of irony: the high schoolers who support the administration want to take O'Reilly to task for speaking out against the presentation's libertarian views? Gimme a break! Now they've got conviction? Those who don't want to be controlled now want to control? They just can't have it both ways!

3. In case anyone hasn't noticed: the message of the presentation really has nothing to do with responsible sex/drug use. Instead it has everything to do with postulating a (not-so-suble) sense of NARCISSISM (or self-love). In other words, the message is: "do whatever feels good, as long as it doesn't hurt someone else." Except the problem with advocating our own narcissistic self-love (i.e., freedom to choose whatever we think will make us happy) is that it fails to take into account that as individuals - we don't exist in a vaccuum independantly of anyone else. As John Donne put it: "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main". We are all part of a community - and the decisions we make (even those done to ourselves) affect the whole. That is, promoting a culture of narcissism only undermines or destroys any real sense of community.

I am a male who remained abstinent until age 27, when I married my virgin wife (age 28). Yes, religion did play a role in our choice. I find it strange that the speakers are so supportive of those who choose to have multiple sex partners, use illegal druges, etc. while belittleing those who choose abstinance until marriage and fidelity after.

"cudos for the last student and her thoughtful comment on the one-sided panel." - comment No 97. Would it be fair to say that most of the comments here about the panel are one-sided? I must say, despite the panels various outrageous and inappropriate comments, they were less "one-sided" than the rest of us reacting.

I am not shocked Bill O'Reilly would leave out so many details of the transcript I read. It appears O'Reilly has chosen the most sensitive comments presented by the panel and run with them. It saddens me that many attack the panel as being "one-sided" while O'Reilly has presented this story, behaving nothing short of one-sided.