Hatch Amendment
(Parent’s Name)
(Address)
(City/State/Zip Code)
Dear______________:
I am the parent of________________ who attends______________ school.
Under U.S legislation and federal court decisions, parents have the primary
responsibility for their children’s education, and pupils have certain rights, which
the school may not deny.
Parents have the right to be assured their children’s beliefs and
moral values are not undermined by the schools. Pupils have the right to have and to
hold their values and moral standards without direct or indirect manipulations by the
schools through the curricula, textbooks, audio-visual materials or supplementary
assignments.
Under the Hatch Amendment, I hereby request that my child NOT be
involved in any school activities or materials listed unless I have first reviewed all
the relevant materials and have given my written consent for their use:
? Psychological and psychiatric treatment that is designed to affect
behavioral, emotional, or attitudinal characteristics of an individual or designed to
elicit information about attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs or feelings of an
individual or group;
? Values clarifications, use of moral dilemmas, discussion of religious
or moral standards, role-playing or open-ended discussions of situations involving moral
issues, and survival games including life/death decision exercises;
? Contrived incidents for self-revelation; sensitivity training, group
encounter sessions, talk-ins, magic-circle techniques, self-evaluation and
auto-criticism; strategies designed for self-disclosure including the keeping of a diary
or a journal or a log book;
? Sociograms, sociodrama; psychodrama; blindfold walks; isolation
techniques;
? Death education, including abortion, euthanasia, suicide, use of
violence, and discussions of death and dying;
? Curricula pertaining to drugs and alcohol;
? Nuclear war, nuclear policy and nuclear classroom games;
? Globalism, one-world government or anti-nationalistic curricula;
? Discussion and testing on interpersonal relationships; discussions of
attitudes toward parents and parenting;
? Educating in human sexuality, including pre-marital sex,
contraception, abortion, homosexuality, group sex and marriages, prostitution, incest,
bestiality, masturbation, divorce, population control, and roles of males and females;
sex behavior and attitudes of student and family;
? Pornography and any materials containing profanity and/or sexual
explicitness;
? Guided-fantasy techniques; hypnotic techniques; imagery and
suggestology;
? Organic evolution, including Darwin’s theory;
? Discussions of witchcraft, occultism, the supernatural, and mysticism;
? Political and/or religious affiliations of students or family;
? Income of family;
? Non-academic personality tests; questionnaires or personal and family
life attitudes.
The purpose of this letter is to preserve my child’s rights under the
Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (The Hatch Amendment) to the General Education
Provisions Act, and under its regulations as published in the Federal Register of
September 6, 1984, which became effective November 12, 1984.
These regulations provide a procedure for filing complaints first at the
local level and then with the U.S Department of Education. If a voluntary remedy fails,
federal funds can be withdrawn from those in violation of the law.
I respectfully ask you to send me a substantive response to this letter
attaching a copy of your policy statement on procedures for parental permission
requirements, to notify all my child’s teachers, and to keep a copy of this letter in
my child’s permanent file.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely,