There are plenty of things that kids need to be protected from today (and then taught how to deal with on their own), but I never would have thought fairy tales would be among them.

Kirkland’s Robert Frost Elementary School officials have ordered the script of a school play version of “Snow White in the Black Forest” to be rewritten to remove content not in conformance with the Lake Washington School District’s “human-dignity and anti-bullying policies“. Among the “offending” material:

Some parents are upset that Principal Sue Anne Sullivan asked the play’s directors to remove parts of the script that violate the schools’ human-dignity and anti-bullying policies. Cuts included the name of the character “DimWitty,” making the “crazy gesture” — rotating the index finger near the ear, and lines of a song about being proud of being curvy.

And who was it that complained?

“Our concern was that in certain instances, the specific nature and/or degree of put-downs for humorous purposes was excessive or inappropriate,” said [Principal Sue Anne] Sullivan, stressing that the objections had come from several teachers.

When Boeing and Microsoft recently complained that the public school graduates they had been seeing were highly deficient in math skills, the public school administrators said they would get around to fixing this problem. In five years!  But apparently, they have plenty of time to worry that an adaption of a fairy tale couldn’t be handled by today’s students.

Studio East has staged “The Emperor’s New Clothes” at seven other district schools and “Snow White” at Robert Frost twice before, Eagleson said.

“We were surprised,” said [technical director Marty ] Eagleson, calling the requested changes excessive. “Bad people do bad things and say bad things. That’s how you recognize them as villains.”

Bingo!  I’m guessing Ms. Eagleson got her education before teachers became intellectually lobotomized by Political Correctness.  I would have used this as a teaching moment:

“You see, kids, this is how the world works. Some adults are humorless, meddlesome dipsticks, who freak out at the thought that other people might be enjoying themselves, or even worse, think in different ways than they do. So they scream and stomp their feet and make everybody else miserable until they get their way. Because, the thing is, whether they get their way doesn’t have anything to do with them being right, or their opinion being shared by the majority of people. The only thing that matters is how loud they shout, because most people don’t like making a fuss, or listening to someone else make one, so they’ll cave in to the stupid demands, just so they can have some peace and quiet.”

Just goes to reinforce my belief that the problem with government schools is not that they lack ample funding.  It’s that the school system insists on wasting so much of the funds it already receives.