Elementary indoctrination

A group of concerned parents in California fear that newly proposed guidelines for the state’s health curriculum in the public schools could endanger their children and strip them of their parental rights.

The 1,000-page Health Education Framework immediately raised eyebrows when the California Department of Education first released it for public review in March 2018. The document, which is designed to guide K-12 curriculum development on nutrition, substance abuse, exercise, and sexual health for the next decade, is the practical result of the Healthy Youth Act, a law passed in 2015 requiring all California public and charter schools to provide comprehensive sexual health education. The law forces schools to affirm different sexual orientations and teach about gender identity and gender expression. Though parents are allowed to opt their children out of sexual health lessons entirely, they cannot pull their children from individual lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity because the law says that would violate anti-discrimination laws.

The guidelines for kindergarten through third grade instruct teachers to introduce the concept that an individual’s gender does not always match his or her sexual and reproductive organs. “In the classroom, we may use the term ‘female reproductive organs’ but some people who identify as male have these organs,” the guidelines state. They also recommend inviting transgender individuals to elementary classrooms and reading picture books such as Who Are You? The Kids Guide to Gender Identity, which includes an interactive wheel that lets students choose their own body and identity and tells them adults simply guess about a baby’s sex at birth.

Seventh and eighth grade instructors are told to use the term “partner” in place of boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, and wife to avoid assumptions about gender and sexual orientation, adding “some students may be non-monogamous and the term ‘partner(s)’ may also be used to be more inclusive.”

The high school guidelines give a long list of possible sexual orientations and their definitions, including bisexual, pansexual, and polysexual, warning, “Gender and sexuality are often fluid and do not always fit neatly into these categories. This can be challenging for some to grasp.” And both the middle and high school guidelines reference “spiritual abuse,” described as “forcing others to adhere to rigid gender roles” and “not allowing partners to do things they enjoy.”

The state’s Instructional Quality Commission released the curriculum guidelines again on Nov. 1 for a second review period. The commission is reviewing the feedback and will recommend final edits to the State Board of Education at meetings on March 22-23. The board is expected to adopt the guidelines in May.

A group of concerned parents plans to hold a rally in Sacramento, the state capital, on Friday to oppose the proposed framework. They argue the guidelines go against a California statute affirming that “parents and guardians have the ultimate responsibility for imparting values regarding human sexuality to their children” and that the framework fails to meets its own stated standards of being age-appropriate, medically accurate, and unbiased.

“[They] are trying to override the values and morals of a lot of California families by undermining what parents teach at home through the framework,” Aileen Blachowski, a member of the group Informed Parents of California and a mother living in Orange County, told me. She said the guidelines are an example of incrementalism, tiny steps away from common sense: “In 2016, very few people were aware that the [Healthy Youth Act] passed, that it contained what it contained.”

Now Informed Parents of California is working to build a team of parents to respond to the guidelines in all 58 counties in the state.

“We intend to show up at their Instructional Quality Commission meetings, at the State Board of Education meetings … to prove that we are parents who have read every letter of this and we’re very well aware of what it is and we have constructive comments to be made,” Blachowski said. “We’ve been told they do want to hear us.”

But they face an uphill battle. California has championed LGBT advocacy in schools, passing laws that other states copy, and activists are continually lobbying for more. This month, the Human Rights Campaign released a report on LGBT youth in California and called on the state to implement more laws requiring education on LGBT affirmation.

Blachowski said those efforts are a threat to what Christians know to be the good, the true, and the beautiful: “To many parents it feels like the state is trying to rip our children’s hearts and minds right out from underneath us.”