Anti-bullying assembly held at Mountain View Middle School, after all that

Maybe the most-discussed student assembly in the history of Cumberland Valley School District went off Wednesday, as rescheduled, at Mountain View Middle School.

There, author / actor Maulik Pancholy delivered what was billed as an anti-bullying message to students centered on the idea that every young person has times when they worry about fitting in, how to handle that when that’s you, and how to be a good citizen toward everybody else around you.

This empathetic lesson almost wasn’t delivered when CV school board members – reacting to what they claimed was Pancholy’s activism, but with some also alluding to his sexual orientation – cancelled the assembly in early April.

That led to a swift and ferocious public pushback from CV staff, parents and students that on April 24, saw the board, in a narrow 5-4 vote, agree to reschedule Pancholy’s appearance.

You might like to know what Pancholy, an actor known for his work on the cast of “30 Rock” and “Weeds” who has also gained a different level of renown in the last five years as the author of two highly-regarded books for young adults, actually said Wednesday. See what all the fuss was about, right?

Us too.

Unfortunately, that can’t happen.

The district refused to open the assemblies – one each for the 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-graders at the 1,400 student school – to the press.

Their statement, from earlier this week: “Representatives for Mr. Pancholy have requested no media and video. In addition, our objective is to make this as normal of a presentation as possible for our students.”

PennLive also reached out to Pancholy for an interview about his crazy month, with no success.

But we can tell you this.

By all accounts it appears that if Cumberland Valley wanted to try to keep the focus on the lesson at Mountain View Wednesday, they largely accomplished that goal.

During a drive-by in the early afternoon, there were no pickets or demonstrations off the campus; closer to the building, you couldn’t help notice one Cumberland Valley School District police car parked very visibly in front of the main entrance.

District spokeswoman Tracy Panzer said there no incidents throughout the day. Mountain View students, or their parents, were allowed to opt-out of the assembly. Panzer said there were less than 20, and student absences were similar to those on a typical school day in May.