Viagra Reference In School District Presentation
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. (STMW) -- What do you get when you combine Viagra and caffeine? That's the chemistry question posed on the imaginary whiteboard supplied in a rendering of a future Highland Park High School District 113 classroom.
Like many animated movies that included racy subliminal images, the district's architectural consultant included a sexually loaded message in its product. Hidden within District 113's presentation of drawings and illustrations that outline its proposed $169 million school-overhaul is a wall-length whiteboard in a technologically advanced classroom. The whiteboard displays the specific chemical compound "C22H30N6O4S," also known as Sildenafil or Viagra.
The image goes on to call the erectile dysfunction drug "CEO Stress Relief."
District 113 Assistant Superintendent Sue Hebson pledged Tuesday that the image will be immediately removed from the district's presentation.
"It doesn't appear to be an instructional concept," Hebson said. "From that perspective I would say yes, it's inappropriate.
"We didn't know that was in the presentation."
The drawing was provided by Wight and Company, a Darien-based architecture, engineering and construction firm hired to come up with a comprehensive facilities improvement plan for Deerfield and Highland Park high schools.
"That's something we did not expect to see in a high school classroom," Hebson said.
Elizabeth Koski, vice president of marketing and communications for Wight and Associates, said that the inclusion of the image was an oversight.
The employee who worked on the District 113 project pulled images from a clip-art file to include in the presentation and did not identify the racy message at its original size, Koski explained.
Koski said the slide aimed to show that the new whiteboard technology allows wall-to-wall educational use.
"It was not meant in any way to offend anyone," she added.
--Pioneer Press, via the Sun-Times Media Wire
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2010. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
