San Francisco School Board to End ROTC Over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

TAKE ACTION – E-mail the new USA House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or call her at (202) 225-4965 and ask her to intervene so that San Francisco teenagers who want to participate in ROTC and to prepare for a future in our nation’s honorable military retain the opportunity to enjoy that privilege.

Excerpted from S.F. School Board Set to Pull Trigger on JROTC, by Jill Tucker, published Nov 5, 2006, by San Francisco Chronicle:

A majority of the seven-member San Francisco Board of Education is poised to end the district’s 90-year relationship with the U.S. military and its widely popular Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, with a vote expected next week.

The proposal before the board on Nov. 14 would phase out the 1,600-student program after two years, with no new cadets added after this semester.

Four board members — Dan Kelly, Mark Sanchez, Eric Mar and Sarah Lipson — oppose the program on two grounds: the military’s stance on gays and the desire to keep the armed forces out of public schools.

…”I don’t think the military should be involved in civilian life,” said Kelly, a self-described pacifist who served two years in prison for resisting the Vietnam draft.

“I know that children, the students, like the program,” Kelly said. “I know they enjoy it. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s doing a good thing for them.”

About 10 percent of the students in the seven participating high schools are enrolled in the district program, which includes one for the Navy and six for the Army. Students often enroll for two years to get state-required physical education credits needed to graduate.

…Most critics acknowledge that the JROTC helps reduce dropouts. Students learn leadership and problem-solving skills, first aid, money management, geography, civics and how to be a team player, among other topics — some of which they learn in other required classes.

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