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Education

Parents Upset Over Survey Asking High School Students If Their Families Owned Guns

Feb. 8, 2013 5:12pm Liz Klimas

Parents of students at a high school in Tennessee are speaking out against a survey students took without parents being told that involved questions asking if their families owned guns, among other potentially controversial topics.

ABC 24 reported that Arlington High School allowed students to take a survey that included questions about guns, abortion and religion, which some parents feel should not have been administered, at least not without their knowledge.

Here’s some of the perspective from parents and students regarding the survey:

April Heath used Facebook as her sounding board after she says her daughter was given the questionnaire at school. In her post, she says her daughter was asked her if her parents owned guns; it also asked for the student’s opinion on the legalization of marijuana, abortion and what her religion is.

Student Phillip Beasley said, “It’s not that big of a deal, it’s just you don’t need to get into other people’s business that’s not yours, you know?”

“To tell you the truth I can’t think of any good reason to do that,” added grandparent Sharon Starlings. “It doesn’t seem right.”

Parents in Arlington say the questionnaire was out of line.

“I would be not OK with that,” said parent Martina Ashmore.

In a statement, Shelby County Schools said the survey was driven by the AP psychology class students and teacher-approved for a project teaching them about the scientific method. Here’s more from the statement:

Topics reflect current issues that students are seeing and reading about in the news, as well as the related laws and policies that address them. To support their research, students were permitted to conduct the surveys in several classes. The surveys were permitted only under the condition that they are completely anonymous and optional, and students were informed prior to the survey being handed out that it was completely anonymous and optional. Teachers of multiple subjects seek opportunities to incorporate current issues in their curriculum, including those included in this survey. Teachers and administrators at Arlington High School supported this research project because they believe the best way to effectively educate students about the issues that concern them is allowing them to be engaged participants in conversations about them.

Watch ABC’s report:

Featured image via Shutterstock.com.

This story has been updated to correct that the high school is in Tennessee not Texas.

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. Find out more HERE.

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Comments (152)

MrObamablows
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 7:29pm
Teach your kids to tell them None Of Your Dam Business! Next question?

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JTX
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 7:24pm
Dont Tell Government school officials ANYTHING. If you are unlucky enough to have to use a public government school, train your kids to TELL THEM NOTHING personal unless their parent or guardian is present.

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conspiracygirl
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:49pm
Did anyone read the article…?

1) It was a student-designed survey that students administered to other students for a class project.
2) It was an anonymous.
3) Participation was optional.
4) Geeze already. Don’t be so freakin’ knee-jerk, people!

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- JTX
  Posted on February 8, 2013 at 7:26pm
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5— It’s none of their business.
  
  Report this comment
Rowgue
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:45pm
If it was truly completely anonymous and optional then there is no issue.

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RaydocX
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:41pm
ah, yes, another lesson for my kids… recognizing when people they are supposed to trust are asking questions that are beyond the scope of appropriateness.

how do you get a grade school kiddo to understand sometimes it’s not just ok to lie, sometimes you should lie.

funny for all the overstepping public schools (and some parochial schools) are doing, that our kids aren’t getting better educations…

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LB
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:35pm
get your kids out of these governmnet run schools. They are brainwashed and filled with propoganda. Be parents not sheep

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shorelineliz
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:34pm
I would love for the teachers to have to answer this survey:

1. do you own any guns?
2. how much alcohol do you swill each night?
3. tell us about your prescription drugs? how many bottles in your cabinet?
4. how much porn do you watch nightly?
5. how many abortions have you had?
6. are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party USA
7. how many vibrators or other sex toys do you have and use?
8. Have you ever molested a kid?

I bet the teachers would balk and refuse which is what those kids had a right to do. These dam teachers need to mind their own dam business and shut their yaps and teach reading, writing, math, science and geography. These darn kids cannot even point out their own country on a map yet alone anybody else’s. Sue these teachers! Better yet just fire them all! Worthless people!

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Beachmastermax
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:30pm
Quit sending your children to Government internment camps EVERYDAY!!!!!!

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- Beachmastermax
  Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:31pm
  If this is not Invasion of privacy, what is!!
  
  Report this comment
- barber2
  Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:37pm
  BEACH: With the powerful Left – from Anonymous to the Chicago radical Obama Drone Crowd – there is no such thing as ” privacy.”
  
  Report this comment
DoOrDie
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:29pm
Who authorized this and why? What business is it of theirs? Would they suspend the kids who refused to answer? Things are looking bleak for the citizens of this country. This is no longer a free country and things need to happen quickly to change it before it’s too late

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- Beachmastermax
  Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:33pm
  No, just flunked the class, not allowed to graduate and had their income ability reduced.
  
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Saff SGT
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:27pm
I have to move on I puke evrytime i read this article

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- Beachmastermax
  Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:36pm
  Guys in the military are now given questionaires regarding their religious beliefs. Only one way to flunk. Stick with the gospel message and say it is the only way. FLUNK!!!!
  
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conspiracygirl
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:26pm
There’s a time to get your panties in a twist but this isn’t it. This was a student project — and the survey was anonymous and optional. So what’s the problem…?

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Saff SGT
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:25pm
Schools are run by Muslim terrorist not American teachers

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nesmond
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:23pm
Marine implies that it is un-American to to withhold info to our government, then he calls it paranoia when someone mentions that the school is “coincidentally” using the same methods of having kids collect personal information on the family that the former Soviet Union used, As my long-ago deceased father would say when confronted with Marine’s logic, “He ain’t got a lick of sense about him”.

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Saff SGT
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:23pm
Dumb left Wing teachers just adding more mails to their coffins, stupid move so Communistic

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CWPrequired
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:23pm
Shouldn’t the teacher be suspended for writing the word gun in school????

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tothepoint
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:23pm
Hey Socialist Lefty anti-Americans – Stay out of our schools and away from our children!
Stop forcing your lefty anti-American beliefs onto our children.

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barber2
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:19pm
Somehow the term ” public” school is taking on new meaning with the Occupation of the White House by the Far Left Obama Administration !

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BHOHG2G
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:15pm
I’d say yes, we have a box full of imaginary hand grenades for when we play ” save the world”. And then …… f off.

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Saff SGT
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:15pm
These Communist teachers have X’s on their backs now, too bad they had to divulge they are True Communists working for Obama. too bad for them

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jscottkemp
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:09pm
And I am not particularly upset since the survey was given not by the school (but by students as part of a psych class project) and was anonymous and optional. This is a non-starter as a cause of concern.

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jscottkemp
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:05pm
Just by-the-way – I graduated from Arlington High School in Arlington, TX and it is in Tarrant County. I believe that Shelby County is in Tennessee.

Of course, I understand that everyone would naturally PREFER to be from Texas…

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BlackCrow
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:04pm
Seeing as I was the assistant coach of my kids high school rifle team it would have been a safe assumption that I had firearms. Now if the school did NOT have a rifle team I would have been looking for another school.

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eramthgin
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:03pm
If schools would quit this crap and spend time teacher we would all be better off. What a waste of valuable class time. Not to mention the intrusion into their family life. No student can own a gun so they wanted them to rat their parents out?

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TRILO
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 6:00pm
Everything is ok little sheeple. Go back to sleep.

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pamelaj1949
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 5:59pm
FYI—
Arlington High School mentioned is in Arlington, Tennessee — suburb of Memphis.
The video is our local ABC affiliate.

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