FORT COLLINS, Colorado (LifeSiteNews) — High-level staff members at a Colorado school district agreed that children who identify as transgender ought to be called by their new name and pronouns at school even if their parents object, according to emails resurfaced on social media last week.
The school district has subsequently denied allegations that it is deceiving parents, and said it told a particular set of parents about their child’s pronoun use outside the home “when asked directly.” However, the district’s policies openly encourage staff members to use a child’s transgender name and pronouns at school but to refrain from doing so in front of parents “to avoid outing the student.”
The emails, sent in March and April 2022 and made public in November after a public records request, were resurfaced last week in a Twitter thread by Independent Women’s Forum senior fellow Nicole Solas.
The thread included screenshots of the communications, which were sent by officials with the Poudre School District (PSD) in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Emails reveal @Poudreschools started secretly transitioning K-5 students last year by using students’ preferred names & pronouns at school but legal names with parents. @Erin4Parents
See 🧵👇 1/8 pic.twitter.com/qBTFxpXi26
— Nicole Solas Domestic Terrorist! (@Nicoletta0602) March 2, 2023
In the emails, Laurel Elementary School assistant principal Amanda Pawelski reached out to ask about the district’s policy in the event that a transgender-identifying child’s desire to be called by a new name and pronouns conflicts with the wishes of that child’s parents.
“I’m wondering what to do when an elementary school student has expressed their pronouns and chosen name but their parents directly tell school staff not to call the student by those pronouns,” Pawelski said in a March 31, 2022 email to PSD chief equity and academic officer Marlena Gross-Taylor.
“I feel very strongly about the student but have heard that we legally have to follow the parents’ direction due to the age of the child (elementary school). I’ve also heard that this is different in secondary schools due to legal determination ages,” Pawelski continued.
There are countless reasons to conclude modern sex-education is less about critical thinking and more about indoctrinating and sexualizing children at as young an age as possible.
Consider these 3 questions:
- Why are politicians around the world pushing radical transgender theories on children as young as 5?
- Why is the World Health Organization calling for 4 year-olds to be taught how to masturbate?
- Why are children in schools being shown graphic images of sex and told anything goes so long as consent is established, if not to encourage our sons and daughters to become sexually active?
A sane society would try to shield impressionable children from becoming sexualized, and encourage them not to watch pornography, take puberty blockers or mutilate their genitalia, but our schools increasingly promote these behaviors.
In reality, the media, most politicians, and many education chiefs are obliterating a parent's ability to protect their child's innocence and identity.
We must realize: these elites want children to have THEIR values, not YOURS. SIGN THE PLEDGE!
The results of this explicit, inappropriate sex-saturated culture and education have been startling: there have never been more children claiming to be transgender, gay, lesbian and bisexual, nor have we ever seen such high levels of sexual assaults by minors.
BREAKING: Loudoun County father who was dragged out of woke school board meeting reveals his daughter was 'raped' in the girls' bathroom by a 'skirt-wearing' male student who was arrested for assaulting a SECOND girl months later - but staff did nothinghttps://t.co/awoZcVQx3l
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 12, 2021
This nut could end up being your child’s teacher and you wouldn’t even find out the craziness they’re teaching until your kid tells you about it. If you aren’t disturbed after watching this, you’re a lunatic. School choice is the civil rights issue of our generation. pic.twitter.com/y1V3Rotx9k
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 17, 2021
Countless politicians, media personalities and education chiefs are too busy promoting woke trends to realize that sexualizing minors amounts to grooming, and has devastating consequences in many cases.
Children whose inhibitions are broken down risk addiction to pornography, teenage pregnancy, STDs, gender dysphoria, online shaming, and a whole host of other negative outcomes.
Parents, not the government, must be in control of what their child is taught about sex.
Just listen to the type of materials public schools in the U.S. are promoting:
That's why we are asking you to sign the Parents' Pledge that you will pull your children out of sex-education classes if your school chooses to sexualize your child.
The Parents' Pledge is our best chance of winning back our children's schools before they're entirely lost to radical sex-obsessed teachers' unions who are foisting these curricula on teachers.
Do you really want other adults deciding what your child is exposed to? Of course not.
Please share this brand new grassroots Parents' Pledge with like-minded parents and join a growing movement of mothers and fathers who are wise to the threat of their child being led into sexual activity.
MORE INFORMATION:
Most teachers are disturbed by their unions' push to sexualize children
The corrupting influence of sex-education is causing widespread abuse among school children
She added that she “was asked about this in the ABCs training, and I was told it makes no difference if elementary or secondary and that the law doesn’t make that distinction that we should follow the student, not the parents.”
Saying she wanted a “more definitive answer,” Pawelski explained that she wanted to ensure she and her teachers both “support the student” and are “covered legally.”
Gross-Taylor forwarded Pawelski’s question to LGBTQIA coordinator Shayna Seitchik and educational consultant Darcie Votipka.
On April 5, 2022, Seitchik sent an email saying she had discussed the matter with Votipka and the two had concurred “that the school should use the student’s affirming name and pronouns at school and use their legal name and corresponding pronouns when talking with the family until they are supportive of the student’s new name and pronouns.”
Seitchik said Votipka had already consulted “the previous legal team,” which she said “was in support of this.”
In her March 2 Twitter thread, Solas tagged Fox News, suggesting that a “reporter should get an update on this alarming practice [at Poudre Schools] to keep secrets from parents and brainwash ELEMENTARY school aged children to maintain different identities w[ith] teachers and parents.”
Fox News reported on the resurfaced emails March 4. In the article, the outlet said it reached out to PSD for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
LifeSiteNews also reached out to PSD but did not receive a reply.
A day before Fox’s report, on March 3, PSD put out a statement attempting to shoot down claims that it was keeping students’ alleged transgenderism a secret from their parents.
“[T]he full email thread that was provided through a November 2022 open records request does show that the school responded affirmatively to the family that the child was using a preferred name and pronoun while at school when asked directly,” the statement reads. “This is clearly stated in the March 31, 2022 email.”
“No staff lied to or deceived parents,” PSD argued. “We stand by our staff who work tirelessly to support students and families.”
— Poudre School District (@PoudreSchools) March 3, 2023
However, the school district’s policies openly encourage staff members to “respect the degree to which transgender and non-binary students are out to others,” including by refraining from using their chosen name and pronouns around parents “to avoid outing” them.
Summarized in PSD’s public-facing “Guidelines for Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Students: Key Points for PSD Staff Members,” which can be found on the district’s public-facing LGBTQIA+ Resources and Support webpage, staff members are told: “When communicating with a parent/guardian of a transgender or non-binary student, staff should use the name and pronouns that a student’s parent/guardian use to avoid outing the student.”
RELATED: Wisconsin judge sides with parents who sued school district for hiding child ‘gender transitions’
The guidelines also state that “All students may dress in accordance with their gender identity and gender expression,” and warn staff members that “[t]he deliberate or persistent refusal to respect a student’s gender identity or expression by intentionally using an incorrect name and/or pronoun [like the child’s legal name and pronouns corresponding to their immutable biology] is an example of harassment in District policy and Colorado law.”
Responding to PSD’s statement, Solas said, “You clearly stated in the email that staff should ignore and defy parents who don’t want their kids brainwashed with fake identities.”
“Your very response deceives not just parents but the entire American public,” she argued.