French military leader Charles de Gaulle said, “Politics is too serious a manner to be left to politicians.” At Parker, many high schoolers and middle schoolers are participating in the 2016 political election. But what if Parker isn’t as open to political opinions as our mission statement says we are?

Our ethos states that, “we are deliberately composed of a diverse group of people so that we can learn how to honor the dignity and experience of every human being.” Studies from Gallup, which does surveys on teens and their political opinions, reports that seven out of ten teens keep the same political and social ideology as their parents. “In today’s society you’re not allowed to really choose your side for yourself,” freshman Matthew Turk said. “Usually you have to choose a side depending on what your family believes in.”

Parker parent eighth grade English teacher David Fuder thinks that kids should have greater freedom from their parents. “I think that a child has to be in a safe place and in a place where they’re under the care of other adults,” Fuder said. “But as they get older, I definitely think that parents have to let kids think for themselves and be willing to have open communication.”

Parker students and teachers spoke about the struggle of trying to be such an open and understanding school. “I think we’re open, but I also think that there is a majority of sentiment here that politically Parker leans in one direction and so it’s hard for diverse voices to get heard,” seventh grade English teacher Kate Tabor said. “I think we could, as teachers, present a lot of diverse news voices and how kids finds ways to learn about what’s out there in the world.”

This majority sentiment that Tabor discusses may get in the way of new perspectives, according to Fuder. “We get so caught up in being progressive and thinking of ourselves as sort of being liberal-minded and open and tolerant,” Fuder said, “but sometimes that tolerance doesn’t allow us to listen to and accept other points of view that might be different than our own.”