OUR VIEW: Exclusionary assembly wrong

It was wrong for Roy High School Principal Dale Pfister to OK a school assembly that was only open for minority students.

The message -- urge minority students to do their best in school and graduate -- was great, but all students should have been invited to participate.

An all-white assembly would be very inappropriate, just as the all-minority assembly was. It's just not a good idea to separate our students by race.

School administrators missed an opportunity to invite all students to the assembly. It could have easily been noted beforehand that the assembly included an important message for minority students. A presentation delivered in that manner would have involved all students and provided the potential to promote unity and a shared goal of academic excellence.

Singling out attendance to an event by race can unwittingly create confusion and tension between students. An exclusionary event that urges specific improvement by minorities in schools must have made some students wonder if minorities were a big problem at Roy High School.

There was another problem with the Roy event. It featured Roy mayoral candidate Dave Tafoya as the speaker. Tafoya, a Roy High School graduate who is also a member of the Roy City Council, is an admirable person worthy of much respect. In just about any time, he is the perfect choice to motivate students during an assembly.

However, last Oct. 30, which is when the assembly occurred, was the wrong time. Tafoya was a candidate for Roy mayor. He should not have been speaking, as a candidate, in a public, taxpayer-funded event before an audience that includes potential voters.

Pfister defended the assembly as an effort to reach ethnic subgroups. We submit the idea that if schools will see their students without racial blinders, it will benefit far more students in the long run.