One the area's largest school districts in Clifton Park has been making national headlines in the culture wars.
In late May, a Shenendehowa student's art project themed "The Expressive Faces of the President," depicting President Donald Trump, was taken down after profanities appeared on the piece and a Fox News blogger received photographs of the exhibit. The student-artist who created the piece had left markers along with a sign inviting others to add to it, the intent being that the graffiti would augment the artwork. When principal Don Flynt showed up for a scheduled student art show he saw the graffiti and ordered the exhibit taken down, telling Spectrum News: "I was immediately offended by it and took it down, confiscated it."
But some photographs and comments found their way online. Shenendehowa public information officer Kelly DeFeciani says social media kept the story alive, and come Monday Shen was on Fox News. "National media, I think they have people out there looking for things like that, because it is a shocking picture. But what the story doesn't tell is that it was put up there as a piece of art, just the pictures, kids wrote graffiti on it, the principal saw it and took it down immediately — that part of the story doesn't get told on social media."
Fox News blogger Todd Starnes, whose Facebook page claimed he was "online" and "typically replies within minutes" to messages, did not answer one from WAMC. Flynt hadn't had much luck reaching Starnes either: "I am concerned that Fox News did not speak to me, even though I reached out to the person who wrote the article."
Some Shen parents reacted angrily to the national story. "We're getting all kinds of hate mail and just nasty things said from all over the country, and they're commenting on profanity that students did with profanity — we need everybody to be good role models for our students."
Also in May, two rooms at Shen were appropriated so Muslim students could pray during Ramadan to fulfill religious obligations during school hours. DeFeciani says don't call them "prayer rooms." "The reason why it's two is that we have two school buildings. We have a 9th grade building and a 10-12 building. So it's just a place that kids can go for privacy if they have religious obligations that they need to do during the school day. The fact that it's being called a prayer room is just not accurate. There's nothing in there that's religious, it's not using a classroom space, none of that. It's simply just a place for privacy, and the reason that it came about for Ramadan is because they need to pray every day at a certain time, they have to be on their knees in a certain direction. I mean there's a whole religious obligation, it's not just prayer. They can't do it in the classroom. You know they talk about the separation of church and state, but we've always had to accommodate students' right to prayer, we have kids that pray at our flagpole every morning in a prayer group."
Shenendehowa, in southern Saratoga County, is attended by nearly 10,000 students. Being that large, observers say, will result in headlines from time to time.
In December 2014, the Shenendehowa school board approved a measure 4-2 to allow students on a case-by-case basis to use the bathroom and locker room facilitiesthat reflect the gender they identify with.
In October 2015, a student there started a petition after he claimed school officials told him he could not go to prom in drag.
And in November 2016, alleged racially inflammatory language prompted officials to send a letter to parents asking their help in creating a safe and inclusive environment for all students.
