School board trustee used horrible judgment

We are parents that participated as volunteers in the (Tues. May 5) mockcongressional hearings at the Reagan Library for fifth-grade students of Conejo Valley. This has been a crash course in civics for our 10- and 11-year-olds as they wrap up their year of study on colonial American history and the development of our constitutional government.

The students performed admirably; however, as parents observing the proceedings we were all terribly shocked when Dolores Didio, acting in an official capacity as judge and as president of the Board of Education, spontaneously asked the children participating in the fourth congressional panel to respond to a current events article.

Dolores Didio framed the question so that the students were to discuss freedom of speech in regard to a controversial panel discussion that had taken place at a Boulder, Colo., high school in April wherein the benefits and virtues of "unprotected sex" and "drug use" had been extolled. Ms. Didio specifically used the words "unprotected sex," "drug use" and a "Colorado school" in the question that she posed to the six young panelists.

Ms. Didio could have used a million other ageappropriate examples to probe the minds of these elementary school students, but her choice of examples is both reprehensible and regrettable.

Our children's innocence is to be cherished and protected, and we are tremendously angered by the arrogance implicit in Ms. Didio's actions. This is a board member clearly out of touch with the students she is meant to protect and with the community that she has been elected to serve. Andrea Ainley and Paulina Goldstein Westlake Village and Lauren Lieberman Thousand Oaks