Chapter 8: News Updates from the Program Agency

November

Daan was in his office, getting his team roster and event assignment lists set for the coming swimming season. He had a number of kids try out for the team and three seemed to be fairly good. Then he got a phone call. It was Janice Markham.

After their greetings, Markham told Daan why she had called.

“Since you were so helpful in giving our agency some important start-up advice, I thought I should give you an update on recent agency news and info about the Fairbanks pilot. Last week, the president issued an executive order carving out some funds from both the DofE and the Department of Health and Human Services budgets to set up an independent agency in the Executive Branch; they named it the ‘Office of Social Awareness,’ and the OSA program will be called the ‘Naked in School Program.’ The legislation which will require that the Program be run in the nation’s schools is very close to becoming adopted by Congress; it’s called the ‘Social Awareness Natural Sexuality Act,’ and it’s been introduced in both houses of Congress. As of last week, it was close to being successfully reported out of committee and that means that both full houses of Congress will be voting on it sometime during this legislative session. That’s from the D.C. side of things.

“So up to now, the info from the state-run schools is less than useful because they’re all doing things differently. The only federal pilot schools that have begun are those on the west coast. Nine of the sixteen are operating now and appear to be doing all right, based on coordinators’ reports. The rest of the schools are starting the Program after the coming winter holidays. But the Fairbanks one, well, I don’t know what to make of the reports from there.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were set to start in October; the September start was delayed because the school district had to deal with a parents’ challenge to it. Another thing is that the city is refusing to relax its ban on minors’ public nudity, so their outreach part can’t happen. They’re not calling it ‘indecent exposure’; that’s not the ban because those laws were repealed, the ban is on ‘contributing to the delinquency of a minor.’ Finally, the school can’t be made warm enough for kids to be naked.”

“They can’t turn up the temps in the building?”

“They can’t and that’s not the only problem too,” Markham said. “Things keep happening in the school, like on the weekend before they were to start, a whole row of windows in the gym had been physically removed—that had to involve heavy equipment and much expertise to do that work. That was clandestinely done over a weekend by people in the community—obviously a construction outfit was involved. So that meant that their planned Program assembly couldn’t happen because there wasn’t any other large enough space for everyone to occupy. Furthermore, in addition to the bank of windows being removed, many of the other windows in classrooms throughout the school had been opened wide too. So on that Monday, the building was far too cold for any nudity. Next, the last coordinator report, from two days ago, claimed that the building heating system keeps turning itself off and the repair people can’t find the cause.

“The coordinator also claims that the entire local community there is involved in resisting the Program, which must be true, and he blames one student in particular, a young girl, who he says seems to be in charge of the community-wide resistance plan. Oh, also that girl’s lawyer got a permanent court injunction against school officials using any form of force, including coercion, to strip anyone.”

“Ah,” Daan interjected. “You’ll recall that I mentioned that legal stuff like that was bound to occur. But I didn’t think that it would happen so soon. How did that girl get involved in organizing a resistance, anyway? Sounds like something my kids would do, actually.”

“Jack Hayword, the coordinator, reported that the girl was picked to participate in the first group because she was socially withdrawn and didn’t date. But the records he sent us showed that she’s thirteen years old but, despite her age, she’s a junior and also takes college classes.”

“Is Hayword that obese fellow? Yeah, he is. Janice, that man is unstable if he’s trying to put a thirteen-year-old into the Program—and if she’s a junior and taking college classes, she must be very academically advanced. So of course she wouldn’t date; juniors would be huge kids to her and kids her own age would be too immature. That situation is a train wreck waiting to happen.”

“Um, that’s not all ... when they picked her and attempted to strip her, she used a ruse to get away; then she left the school and that’s when she got her lawyer to get that injunction. It even gets more complicated because that kid is a British citizen. Hayword reported that he’s attempting to get the British embassy to require her to participate. So it looks like her experiences led her to organize the students there and he reports that now, no student will participate at all.”