TEACH'S FILM CHOICE GETS THUMBS DOWN
Put on leave after parents question appropriateness

Thursday, June 21, 2007
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A Jersey City public school teacher has been placed on leave after parents complained that an award-winning documentary she showed her third-graders was too violent and contained some nudity, school officials said yesterday.

"It became a problem because some parents called questioning the appropriateness of showing it to third grade students," said Gerard Crisonino, a spokesman for the school district.

The teacher, whose name was not released, works at School 15. The film she showed the students was "Lost Boys of Sudan," which tells the story of two boys who survive the civil war in Sudan and come to America.

Jersey City Schools Superintendent Charles Epps Jr. "was concerned and he ordered a full investigation and put her on administrate leave," Crisonino said.

Crisonino did not say specifically what material parents objected to in the film, which is not rated.

The school district notified the state Division of Youth and Family Services, which sent investigators who interviewed five students from the class in which the documentary was shown.

The teacher, who has been with the district about three years and is not tenured, showed the documentary to students last week and was put on leave shortly afterward when two parents complained. She will be on paid leave pending the outcome of an investigation.

Crisonino said the teacher thought the documentary was of educational value - an assertion he said he agreed with - but the question, he said, is whether it is appropriate for 8-year-olds. On the film's Web site, the filmmaker provides study guides for middle school, high school and college students, but makes no mention of elementary school classrooms.

The movie was released in 2003 and won an Independent Spirit Award, was named Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival and was awarded the Heartland Film Festival Crystal Heart Award

The film focuses on the struggles of the boys to adjust to life in America.

"The Lost Boys of Sudan" was broadcast nationally on the PBS series POV in the fall of 2004. A 2004 Washington Post review of the film warns that it "contains one or two instances of crude language."

At dismissal time yesterday at the Stegman Street school, none of the parents questioned while picking up their children had heard of the incident. One staff member said she had, but said, "We aren't allowed to talk about it."

DYFS has not yet told the district the result of its investigation. The school district plans to have someone in human resources view the documentary to rule on its appropriateness for third-graders.

Guidance counselors were present when the five students were interviewed by DYFS and their parents were notified, Crisonino said.

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Film has 'nothing to offend,' says critic

Thursday, June 21, 2007
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The documentary "Lost Boys of Sudan" begins in a war-torn part of Africa and focuses on two boys, Peter and Santino, as they come to America, according to a review that appeared in the Star-Ledger.

They have seen their villages burned, their parents killed, their sisters captured and "used up." Some of them have been alone and in and out of refugee camps for a decade when they are given refugee status and are resettled in America.

"Don't act like those people who wear the baggy jeans, who do all the bad things in America," one countryman warns them, according to the review. But the adults also know that only by sending this generation away can it survive, prosper and return.

The cameras follow the pair as they try to adjust to life in Kansas and Texas, two of some 4,000 "lost boys" resettled in America, the review says.

They become trapped in low-paying jobs and struggle to pay rent, send money home and continue their education; the culture seems strange to them and they are amazed, for instance, that men don't hold hands.

The Star-Ledger review calls the film "a powerful experience, both for the specific hardships of these boys and for the universality of their experience."

The Star-Ledger review ends by saying: "The film contains nothing to offend."