President’s speech shown

Almost all Laguna Beach school district students were expected to hear President Barack Obama’s “back to school” speech to U.S. students by today, Supt. Robert Fraisse said. Students didn’t hear the message in school when it was broadcast Sept. 8.

Principals at all four schools have confirmed to the superintendent that the speech will be delivered in lessons at all grade levels by today, he added.

Parents were given the ability to “opt out” their children from hearing the speech, but so far only one student had been opted out by a parent, Fraisse said Thursday.

“We may have a few others but our guess is that there will be very few,” Fraisse said. “Alternate lessons will be provided to those few who do ask for the opt out.”

Fraisse’s decision not to arrange for the message to be broadcast to schools on the first day of school was prompted by threats of some parents to keep their children home on that day, and also due to practical considerations, he said.

The decision to tape the speech and determine how to present it at a later date caused an angry reaction from a number of current and former school district parents.

“I want to again reiterate that although some have presumed that the essential reason for our taped showing was in response to parental requests for opt outs, that factor was less of a challenge to us than the organizational, educational and technological conflicts with a first day showing,” Fraisse said.

“Simply stated, our belief was and is that we could do a better job honoring the intent of the speech by taping it for a showing very early in the school year than a pro forma viewing in the first hour of the first day.”

The presidential speech was aired live about noon in Virginia “” 9 a.m. West Coast time “” and would have been disruptive to “first day” activities in the Laguna Beach schools, Fraisse said.

Adding to the difficulty of planning for the broadcast was the fact that the day preceding the first day of school this year was a holiday, he added.