Poor Jason Glass.

The Jefferson County Schools sooper, just hired a few months ago, seems to have stumbled into a sticky situation in the wake of the recent violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In a well-intentioned email to parents the other day, Glass offered assurances the district, “will work to ensure that we meet the social/emotional needs of students impacted by this event.”

He continued:

While this presents challenges, it also brings the opportunity to engage students in an authentic and timely learning experience on issues relating to free speech, tolerance, race, leadership, and historical context.

District curriculum and instructional staff have prepared resources to support our teachers in deciding how they will engage with students on this event and related topics. We entrust our classroom teachers and building principals to make professional decisions about the age-appropriateness of these discussions, as well as when and where activities related to this learning might take place. Instruction will be within the Board-adopted content standards and curricula, and will follow the usual district processes related to teaching controversial topics and alternative learning activities. …

It was an attempt to calm the waters in the wake of a news event that had been the talk of the nation. Certainly, among adults. Whether it stirred similar concern among school-age kids is of course open to question. In any event, as Chalkbeat Colorado’s Ann Schimke reports this week, Glass’s effort at outreach drew plenty of effusive praise from parents – but also push-back:

In response to a request from Chalkbeat, Jeffco officials provided 63 messages sent to the district after Glass’s statement was posted on the district’s website and sent home as a letter to parents. The district redacted the senders’ names and email addresses. …

About two-thirds of respondents thanked or otherwise lauded Glass for his statement. …

… not everyone was complimentary.

One parent wrote, “I’ll continue to teach my kids values. Please place your focus on Math and English. Once you’ve done that well, you can become concerned with civics and ethics. Stop doing a poor job at many things and focus on doing a few things well.”

Another wrote, “This should be a very easy lesson to teach. On(e) racist drove his car into another group of opposing racists. Thats what my kids were taught. No need for you to worry about it.”

Some of the parental input was even more pointed:

…your response to the community seems curious. An isolated event that happened on the other end of our large nation seems to have compelled you to alarm parents about what exactly? In what manner have there been “subsequent reactions” that have impeded educational institutions anywhere? This seems to our family a thinly veiled opportunity to further a political agenda on your behalf.

And as Schimke points out, some of the criticism appeared to come from the other end of the political spectrum, as well:

…is there a problem with calling Trump out by name? How can this be treated as a learning opportunity without the willingness to approach it with complete honesty? And please don’t tell me that you want to keep politics out of it. This is NOT a Democratic/Republican problem. It is VERY definitely a Trump problem. It is not a political issue, it is an issue of hate. …

Pity the school superintendent who tries “to keep politics out of it.” He’ll just wind up catching it from both sides. Especially – as the criticism here seems to suggest – when the hapless administrator stands accused of having opened the can of worms in the first place. Alas, it seems there are always parents on both sides of any issue who are all too willing to use their local schools as a venue for venting national politics.

Maybe the front office staff at Jeffco schools headquarters can file this one under, “No good deed goes unpunished.”