Ravalli Republic Online: Stevi school board split on film policy

Ravalli Republic Online: "In other business the administration debuted a film policy. A slew of parental complaints erupted at the last meeting in response to high school teacher Mike Hunter showing his history class the controversial Michael Moore film 'Bowling for Columbine.'

The rough-draft policy would require principal approval before the screening of PG or PG-13 movies and would not allow teachers to show any parts of an R-rated film.

Stevensville does not have a film policy and its film procedure, which calls for administration approval, was not followed in the "Bowling for Columbine" incident.

An impassioned Hunter defended showing "Bowling for Columbine," which he called a "superior documentary" about America's gun culture.

"There's a domestic war in this country," he said. " Eleven-thousand dead within our own borders, and if I have to show a little profanity to get this across, I should be able to.

"We live in an R-rated world, an X-rated world ... At the sophomore level I'm teaching about the Holocaust," Hunter said. "That's XXX-rated. Am I not supposed to teach that?"

Hunter said his teenage students are approached by military recruiters and need to understand the Iraq War is R-rated or worse.

Local parent Katy Majors said her son was among those in the military.

"He was put through intensive training to understand how to execute his job as a marine," she said. "We should leave it at that higher level."

Hunter took the blame for not following procedure. He said a letter was inserted into his file and if he does something similar he will lose his job.

"Is that enough for you?" he said. "... I think it's much ado about nothing.""


By KRISTEN INBODY
Staff Reporter