Submittd by Kristen Niemynski – a concerned parent
Dear Board of Ed and Superintendent Jones,
I was very surprised and upset when I heard the news that the video “Demographic, structure of society sex, gender, and sexual orientation” by Khan Academy was played for students in a 9th grade health class, and parent opt-outs of this material were ignored.
My daughter is in 9th grade, and I opted her out of this progressive, non-scientific, gender ideology garbage.
If this had been shown to my daughter, I would be irate. First of all, why is this progressive and non-scientific garbage being taught to our children at all? Has this been approved by the Board of Education? Do you all feel gender is something you can just decide on a whim from day-to-day? That it’s non-binary and even non-existent if that’s how you “feel”.
Do you have any idea of the potential damage being done to our children by confusing them with this garbage? Depression and suicide rates in children just continue to grow and I believe the gender and race ideologies being pushed in our schools and by the media is the main cause.
Regardless of my opinion on this material…the least you can do is honor the parents’ wishes to opt their children out. It’s difficult enough for parents to even find out what material is being shown to their children.
Our schools ARE NOT TRANSPARENT at all about the race and gender material being shown, distributed, discussed, viewed, and assigned to our children. Almost all sources used in the classroom are politically one-sided. It’s very disturbing to me how political, progressive, and non-transparent our education system has become. My heart goes out to young parents now having to deal with some of this even in elementary school. The worst part is that some parents have either been fooled into believing this isn’t happening or are too busy to keep up with it and check up on their schools, teachers, materials, and assignments.
I remember when a Greenwich elementary school wanted to stop using the term “Mother’s Day” and use some nonsense like “Special Persons Day” or “Caregivers Day” or something like that. Why is there a sudden desire for schools to promote destroying women? We should call a pregnant woman a “birthing person” now? Teach kids that men can get pregnant and menstruate? Biological males can go to the bathroom with and compete in sports against girls? So basically, there is no such thing as a woman…nothing special about a woman and anyone can be one if they just say they are…yet, they can’t give you a definition of the thing they say they are or “feel like”. Do you not see how utterly ridiculous and harmful this is?
Even if you believe in and agree with this radical gender and race ideology, which you are obviously allowing in our schools…parents need, want, and deserve transparency about this material.
We want our children taught facts and not ideologies. This needs to stop and right now our only option is to opt-out of some of this, when we have the opportunity, speak up at BOE meetings and write emails. Believe me, I find no pleasure in writing this email, and it takes time I don’t have to spare out of my busy day at work. The LEAST you can do is offer and honor parents opt-outs of this material in any and every class.