Colorado elementary school Assistant Principal lies to parents to secretly transition their child
Colorado elementary school Assistant Principal lies to parents to secretly transition their child
The parents specifically told them no and they ignored the advice.
I’m completely funded by you! This month, I’d like to earn the support of 75 new paying subscribers. That will allow me to spend as much time as possible bringing you stories like this. We’re 18% of the way there so far and will update this progress meter throughout the month:
If you appreciate my work, please consider a $5/month or $50/year subscription.
If you can’t financially support my efforts, please consider sharing my work with your friends and family to spread the message. I can’t do it without you.
Prefer to listen?
I recorded this topic as an episode for the Actively Unwoke Podcast. I recorded the podcast prior to writing this piece, so the content is slightly different.
Emails show that the administrators of an elementary school in Colorado lied to parents to secretly transition their fifth grade child. These emails were originally shared by Erin for Parental Rights (@Erin4Parents) on Twitter.
There are several characters involved in this exchange:
Amanda Pawelski, the Assistant Principal of Laurel Elementary School
Marlena Gross-Taylor, the Chief Equity Officer of the Poudre School District
Shayna Seitchik, the district’s LGBTQIA+ Coordinator
Darcis Votipka, the district’s Director of Student Services
In the first email, sent March 31, 2022, Assistant Principal Amanda tells Chief Equity Officer Marlena that parents have told them not to call a student by the name and pronouns of the opposite gender that the student had been referring to themselves at school.
The email explicitly says the parents told the school no.
Amanda asks if they have to follow the parents’ directives due to the age of the child, noting that she heard in her training that she might not have to:
In the next email, less than a week later, LGBTQIA+ Coordinator Shayna tells Equity Officer Marlena that she met with Director of Student Services Darcie, and the two of them agree that they should IGNORE the wishes of the parents and use the name and pronouns the child wants in school while using the given name and corresponding nouns of the student “until they are supportive of the student’s new name and pronouns.”
They also linked to resource documents, including this one, which claims that it may violate FERPA if the school shared information about the student’s transgender status with parents.
FERPA stands for FAMILY Education Rights Privacy Act. Apparently, the family part is lost on them.
Then, Chief Equity Officer Marlena passes that information over to Assistant Principal Amanda, using exactly the same language and referencing the same resource document shown above.
And Assistant Principal Amanda responded (and I’m paragraphing): “Are you sure??? Because the parents pretty explicitly told us no, and the student is very young.”
Apparently, the student had asked for help from the school staff when they came out to their parents in the 5th grade. The mother seemed to take the news well, but later specifically instructed the school to stop using the new name and pronouns.
It’s unclear what the response was after that. According to The Daily Mail, Marlena didn’t want to offer a comment and directed them to the communications office.
But that’s not all! Our intrepid reporter @Eric4Parents also just let us know that the school has put out an official gender definition list. You can view the full list here.
This isn’t the first story we’ve seen like this recently. Last week, I reported a New York family was suing an elementary school and a 5th grade teacher for secretly transing their child.
And we also saw training from the Michigan Department of Education in which teachers around the state are under no legal obligation to tell parents if students are going by a different name and pronouns.
If you’d like to watch my full stream on the topic, it’s available here:
What do you think?
What would you do if this happened at your kid’s school?
Leave a comment and let me know! And please share this with your friends and family who need to learn this information.
Fight back against the woke and support my work.
I believe the woke - on the left and the right - are an existential threat to our values as Americans. Some of them know it, most of them are just useful innocents. Regardless, fighting back against this woke cultural revolution is my full-time job. I’m dedicated to exposing the woke ideology in our country, helping people to understand what’s going on, and providing spaces for non-woke people to connect, support each other, and plan ways to fight back.
Here’s how you can help.