Amador County Unified School District chose not to make President Obama's televised address to the nation's students mandatory for teachers to show to Amador County students on Tuesday.

Instead, the school district allowed teachers to decide to show it to their students if the address fit within their lesson plan. The United States Department of Education stated on its Web site that showing the address to students was "entirely up to schools and their communities."

"The U.S. Department of Education said that participation was entirely voluntary, and should be left to the school to decide if it was appropriate," said ACUSD Superintendent Dick Glock. "Our principals asked when it first came out that we not require it, and to let parents and teachers choose."

Argonaut High School Principal Dave Vicari stated that there were no problems reported on campus Tuesday regarding the speech.

"Nobody mentioned one thing about it today," he said. "It wasn't a big deal, and with the holiday there wasn't much time for anything." Vicari also stated that if people felt that they needed to watch it, they could have recorded it.

Glock stated that some upper elementary school students were working on a speech-making unit and watched the address to analyze it for content, but Glock declined to mention which classes viewed it.

Despite the district's decision not to require ACUSD students to view the address in class, some community members and parents chose to voice their opinions to the district regarding the decision. Pine Grove Elementary School parent Dana Hale-Mounier felt that the district's decision was unfavorable.

"I understand the school had to make a decision quickly. I just think it was the wrong choice," she said. She and her husband chose to keep their children at home on Tuesday to watch the address.

Hale-Mounier also expressed her concern for the president's address to be offered with an "opt-in" or "opt-out" choice for parents and students via e-mail to the superintendent. According to Glock, this option was indeed made available at ACUSD schools.

"We certainly allowed it either way. If a classroom showed it, they (students) could be excused," Glock said.

In an e-mail to the community prior to the address being given, Glock stated that, "Most parents do not want views of religion, sexuality and politics discussed in an environment where parents, teachers and students are 'unprepared.'"

Amador County Democratic Central Committee Sergeant at Arms Judy Hotchkiss said that the president's address to students was appropriate to watch at school.

"It's inspirational. It told kids to stay in school and that they could overcome any obstacle," she said. "I think putting it on the teachers and the principals is a pretty easy out for the district, and also opens them up for objections from both sides."

Some students were disappointed that were they unable to watch the address in class. Amador High School Sophomore Aaron Reeves wrote to the Ledger Dispatch in a letter-to-the-editor that his teacher did not show the address to students because it was "very controversial." Reeves later watched it at home with his parents.

"The speech itself wasn't anything extraordinary," Reeves wrote in the letter. "It mentioned things that almost all kids hear from either their parents or teachers on a regular basis. The neat part about it was that the president took time out of his curriculum to give it to us, the students."

According to Glock, another reason the address was not required to be watched was due to technical disadvantages. He stated that some ACUSD schools' bandwidth was not capable of streaming via computer, which caused some computers to have problems receiving the president's address. Ione Junior High School doesn't have television hook-ups, stated Glock.

"We didn't realize we didn't have that capability," he said.

Prior to President Obama's address to students, former President George H. W. Bush delivered an address to students that was broadcast on TV in 1991.