On April 22, take your daughter to work — but if you live in Des Moines, forget about it.

As many years as it took to get this country to see the need to help girls get into the workforce, we still have to deal with the occasional backwards-thinking school district bent on doing their own thing.

The Des Moines school district has decided that, in spite of the success of “Take Our Daughter’s to Work Day,” girls can get more from just another day in classes than from eight hours in the real world.

Being stuck inside a stuffy school building all day can have a serious impact on one’s ability to make rational judgments.

So in an attempt to enlighten the Des Moines school district, let’s look at the problem this way: School is great for learning to do things like trigonometry, squat-thrusts and swing choir, but nothing prepares girls to enter the work force like a day AT work.

Up until the time you actually enter the workforce, it seems like something that will never happen to you.

Spending the day with Mom or Dad at the factory or the office is the best way for girls to get valuable exposure to various careers.

In-class presentations are no doubt helpful. But who among us hasn’t taken THAT as an opportunity to catch a cat nap. Having some boring person stand in front of your class tell you how unaccustomed they are to public speaking before proving it for an hour is no substitute for being there.

Who would want to be an engineer if all the exposure they got to one was listening to one go on about it without so much as a slide rule or calculator for effect?

Sure, some kids use this day as an excuse to play hookey; there are always slackers. A few kids with no interest in their futures should not put the kibosh on the works for everyone.

According to the Des Moines Register, the district wants to keep attendance up and feels that girls should go in the summer when classes are out or on parent/teacher conference day.

Here’s a thought, why not have parent/teacher conference day April 22. It would be easier to have conferences the same day as a national event when businesses can be expected to accommodate parents rather than one kid at a time go to work when companies can’t be expected to make allowances.

The national effort exists for a reason. If everybody goes together something gets accomplished, otherwise its just lip service to a good cause.

Our suggestion to parents: Take those girls anyway.