Dear Mr. President

September 10th 2009

Dear Mr. President,

I wanted to thank you for taking the time to speak to the young students across America this week. With luck, I will get to thank you in person during the next election, because last election season you asked to play basketball in our gym and while we could not work it out in the moment, I made your people promise you would ask again in 2011.

In addition to thanking you, I wanted to let you know how our school responded to your offer to watch your speech. We announced the opportunity in morning all-school assembly and told our students we would display the speech live at noon in our auditorium for anyone who chose to attend. One of our teachers had read the text of the speech beforehand, endorsed your message, and urged everyone to consider attending.

Over the weekend, some parents had expressed concern that we would require attendance and others expressed concern that we would not allow attendance. I was pleased with our balanced approach, offering the opportunity to those who could watch and urging others to watch at a later time. In this way, we minimized the impact on our classroom time but modeled respect for our public servants.

At noon time, I watched in our auditorium with about ten students and five faculty, and could only imagine the impact your speech might have on the future of our country. Surely many of our students watched your talk later in the day via internet or TV.

Thank you again for your uplifting, responsible, and inspiring message - I look forward to thanking you in person.

CNS