Earlier this week, we let you know about our brand-new, FREE book for parents: Back to School—for Parents. This book, which Dr. Michelle Cretella, Executive Director for American College of Pediatricians, called “the most important book a parent will ever read,” is designed to help you understand what’s happening in your child’s school – and do something about it. Each chapter of the book addresses a particular area of the school – the classroom, counselor’s office, school devices, etc.
Wondering what it’s like? Today we’re pleased to offer an abridged excerpt from the “Classroom” chapter. To read more, download your copy of the guide today and share it with friends!
Protecting Your Child in the Classroom
COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION
Parent/Community Voices
Parents and concerned citizens in Washington state were upset when legislators passed a “Comprehensive Sex Education” (CSE) bill – and started finding out what was in some approved CSE curriculums. One mother said, “I began reading all these lessons for children as young as five that talked about sexual intercourse, how their private organs worked, and even introduced pornography to really young children.” The parents note that activist groups like Planned Parenthood are behind the push to require all schools to teach sexual education.
What’s Happening With Comprehensive Sex Education. . .
Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) is a radical “rights-based” sexuality curriculum that is being taught in many public schools, replacing the facts-based sex education of the past. Basic sex education previously promoted abstinence with a focus on biology, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease/infection (STD/I) prevention. Today, well-funded activist non-government organizations, like Planned Parenthood, the Sexuality and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS is a private, activist organization), and Advocates for Youth, are forcing an extremist social and political ideology into our children’s classrooms under the “comprehensive sex education” banner.
It may be a surprise for many parents to learn Planned Parenthood is actually one of the largest writers and distributors of sex education curriculum in the world—a curriculum framework that teaches every child, of any age, has sexual rights, including the right to experience sexual pleasure, no matter what, as long as there is “consent.”
For example, Planned Parenthood materials (that are in many classrooms across the United States) teach:
Sex is always a good decision . . .
. . . no matter what age the child, no matter how risky the sex. . .
. . .no matter how drunk or high the child. . .
. . . And especially without parental involvement!
Be Aware!
How do I recognize Comprehensive Sex Ed in the Classroom?
Not all CSE curriculums will go by this name. Here are specific examples of content red flags that your school may be teaching radical comprehensive sex education.
| CSE Often: |
Sex Education Words We DON’T Like (Red Flagged Words): | |
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Know Your Rights!
- Parental Consent:Many states allow a parent to consent to their child taking sex education or health classes. This means you can say “No!” and opt your child out of sex education classes entirely. In addition, if classroom content violates your religious beliefs or rights of conscience, you have the right to opt your child out of specific lessons. Be sure to submit your opt-out to your school officials in writing! Note: Planned Parenthood and other extreme social groups are fierce advocates of eliminating parents from a child’s sexual decision-making, including the consequences of teen sex. These groups want your child to be able to access contraceptives, birth control, STI treatment, and even abortion without your knowledge or consent. Some state laws allow parents to be excluded from these decisions their child may make. See Chart (available in the full guide online)
- Curriculum Review: You have the federal (and often state) right to request a copy of your child’s school curriculum from your local school board of education. School districts may also post-school curriculums on their websites. School curriculum is usually considered a matter of public record and is required to be released to families, although you may be responsible for copying costs. Take this opportunity to review curriculum for inappropriate content, biased material, or content that contradicts your family’s values. Be prepared to talk with your child about your values and beliefs and what they are being taught.
- Lesson Plan Review: You have the federally protected right to review teacher lesson plans and examine textbooks and other supplemental materials (like videos, activities, games, etc.). As a courtesy, be sure to give the teacher ample notice you’d like to review their lesson plans or other instructional materials. It is also important to build good relationships with your students’ teachers to make access to content far easier.
- Observe Class: You have the federally protected right to observe your child’s class. You may need to provide the school notice beforehand. Some schools are actively seeking parents to sign waivers that they will not observe their child’s classroom. You have the federally protected right to do so, even if you’ve signed a waiver and later change your mind.
ALSO INCLUDED in the full guide: MORE ways to protect your child, plus resources and tips for talking with your child about sex and related issues!
Want to get the details on what you need to know and what you can do about it? Download our FREE guide today, and be sure to share with friends!
Sincerely,
Meridian Baldacci
Policy and Communications Strategist
The most important book a parent will ever read? That’s what Dr. Michelle Cretella, Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians has called it. Today, we are thrilled to release to you a brand-new (and FREE) book we’ve coauthored with Focus on the Family: Back to School—for Parents.
If you’re like many parents, the classroom may have come home for you in 2020—and it may have revealed that you don’t like everything your student is learning in the classroom. And it’s no wonder. Families today face unprecedented challenges at school. The content may be overly sexualized, teach radical viewpoints as fact, or shut down faith-based perspectives – just to name a few concerns.
We receive questions every week from parents about what their rights are, how to navigate the bureaucracies responsible for passing these harmful policies, and how to handle these issues with children at home. We’ve created Back to School—for Parents to answer these questions, because we firmly believe that parents—not any government entity—are truly best at parenting.
The guide is filled with critical information for parents. Did you know that in some schools, a counselor could coach your child to “transition” genders or get an abortion without your consent or even your knowledge? Or that your school’s “secure” research database may be harboring pornographic images easily accessible to students? Or that your child might be told they can’t pray during lunch-time? Back to School—for Parents offers these and other important and eye-opening information for parents, together with practical help for parents who want to prevent or address these situations.
Back to School—for Parents comes highly endorsed from leading organizations, including the American College of Pediatricians. Executive Director Dr. Michelle Cretella said of the guide, “I can authoritatively say that Back to School—for Parents … is the most important book a parent will ever read. Download one for yourself, and for each of your family members and friends who cherish their kids!” Other endorsees include the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, Concerned Women for America, Gateways to Better Education, American Principles Project, and Save Women’s Sports.
For parents who have concerns about a particular aspect of their child’s school, the guide is conveniently organized into sections based on areas and activities within the school—classrooms, counselors and health clinics, bathrooms and locker rooms, sports teams, lunch time and free time, school-owned internet, and school libraries and research databases. Importantly, it also contains a section dedicated to schooling options available to families should they decide their child’s school is not a good fit for their family.
Described by others as “wonderful,” an “invaluable resource,” “much-needed,” and a “wake-up call,” Family Policy Alliance and Focus on the Family hope Back to School—for Parents will help many families prevent, identify, and solve the difficult situations they face every day at school.
The guide is FREE for download at our website. Check it out and share it with friends and family today!
Blessings,
Stephanie Curry
Policy Manager
Initially it was the Senate. It quickly moved to the Assembly. This past week it was the Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Everyone is speaking up at different levels of state and local government in opposition to the new sex ed learning standards for New Jersey public schools.
These standards require curriculum so graphic that when I pasted the text in an email to government officials, the government email servers flagged and blocked my email as “pornographic.”
It’s no wonder everyone is speaking up.
Sylvia Petillo, a Family Policy Foundation® Statesman Alumni, serves on the Sussex County Board of Freeholders. That Board, too passed the resolution in opposition to the new sex ed standards. Sylvia told the press, “It is extremely important that parental rights are respected and included in all sectors of education in our public school.”
I agree, and so it seems, do many other leaders in our state.
The voices of New Jersey elected officials are becoming clearer and more committed to defending parental rights in education. The Senate resolution opposing the sex ed standards now has five sponsors: Senator Mike Testa, Senator Steve Oroho, Senator Michael Doherty, Senator James Holzapfel, and Senator Robert Singer. The Assembly resolution also has five sponsors: Assemblyman Harold Wirths, Assemblyman Parker Space, Assemblyman Ronald Dancer, Assemblyman Gregory McGuckin, and Assemblyman John Catalano.
I am grateful for their public position. I am reenergized by their bold leadership. I am optimistic that we can protect students from post-modern sexual ethics and high-risk sexual acts.
But I am waiting.
Waiting for an unstoppable and influential voice to speak – The Church.
We have volunteer legislative captains scheduling virtual meetings with legislators, but they often struggle to find other parents and pastors to attend these discussions with elected officials. Most legislators are not concerned about the voice of their colleague, but they are concerned about the vote of their constituent.
In other words, they must hear from you! If you have never made a phone call to a legislator, it might seem intimidating. Maybe you avoid disagreement at all costs. Let me reassure you, our meetings with legislators and their staff are not full of conflict but graceful conversation. If you are interested in attending a meeting with your legislator, please let us know by using our online form.
If there’s one voice that must speak out, it’s the Church. Will you help make that happen?
Thank you for taking action to protect the students of NJ!
Shawn Hyland
Advocacy Director
I sent it. I resent it. I tried again – still no success. The email server for the New Jersey state legislature repeatedly rejected my email as spam. This routine form of communication that I engage in daily suddenly became difficult, if not impossible. After a productive and healthy conversation with a legislative aide to a prominent state senator, I promised to email him the revised NJ Comprehensive Health Learning Standard for public schools. The Senator’s office and I could not figure out the reason this particular email was blocked after multiple attempts.
Then it hit me…
I copied and pasted the exact words of the learning standard into the body of the email. That was a tragic mistake, because the exact words and explicit sex acts required for school age children to learn in New Jersey public schools were flagged as “pornographic” by government state computers.
Think.
The government does not allow adults to discuss these pornographic acts on state computer servers because they are obscene and inappropriate, yet the New Jersey Department of Education requires 12-year-old children to define and describe the very same objectionable material.
The systematic sexualization of young children in our society must end.
But it doesn’t end there…
I had another conversation this week with a state coordinator for the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) to learn how these pornographic standards got approved without a public hearing disclosing them. Unfortunately, public review and discussion are just a formality in the process. There are several bureaucratic layers within the NJDOE that are unnamed and unaccountable. They ultimately write the standards to impose their post-modern view of sexuality on young children – public comment aside.
One of our allies on the phone call asked this NJDOE staff member to define the specific act that is required by the state’s learning standard for school age children to define. It was a sincere request. We wanted to know exactly what these students will be required to learn. Embarrassed and uncomfortable, he respectfully declined. Admittedly, such conversation is rightfully awkward among adults. Imagine the conscience of vulnerable students being forced to endure this in a classroom setting.
Thankfully, legislators are taking the lead.
In last week’s email, we informed you that Senator Steve Oroho (R) and Senator Mike Testa (R) introduced SCR129 – a Senate Concurrent Resolution objecting to the obscene sex ed standards. After being involved in numerous advocacy meetings, I am pleased to announce more state senators are adding their name as co-sponsors. This week, Assemblyman Wirth (R) and Assemblyman Space (R) introduced ACR193 – an identical bill in their chamber.
As I urged you to thank our brave senators last week, please call these two Assembly members and tell their staff you appreciate them sponsoring ACR193! It only takes one call to thank both.
Assemblyman Harold Wirth and Assemblyman Parker Space: (973) 300- 0200
Thank you for taking action to protect the students of NJ!
Shawn Hyland
Director of Advocacy
Dear Friends,
Over the years at Family Policy Alliance, we’ve had the privilege of being entrusted with some of your (parents & grandparents) deepest concerns about your children. You’ve given us the privilege of praying for your children and of helping you decide how to best handle issues that have arisen affecting your children.
Through the course of this partnership with you, some of the saddest situations you’ve shared with us are what your children have been exposed to at school. And we’ve had the heavy responsibility to warn you about what is happening in schools across the nation.
Remember Planned Parenthood’s radical sex education curriculum that they’re pedaling in public schools or now through your children’s phones? We partnered with a diverse coalition to expose the transgender policies being sprung on children in schools, providing parents with a comprehensive guide to understanding and addressing concerns. We’ve helped rally parents to oppose a radical new LGBT curriculum requirement And lately, we’ve been fighting to save girls’ sports from becoming targets in the latest round of political attacks. And so much more.
Now we’re excited to invite you to attend a virtual event: The Protecting Children in Education Summit
The virtual summit is a one-day-only event on August 12th, from 10:00AM – 12:00PM Eastern Time. The event is FREE, but you do need to register online!
Family Policy Alliance® is joining with our friends at The Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, California Family Council, Family Research Council, Family Watch International, and Massachusetts Family Institute to provide this first-ever event for parents and grandparents.
The first session will alert parents to state and federal—and even international—efforts to sexualize children using school curriculum. The second session will expose the curriculum itself and how it fails to meet legal standards.
This is sure to be an eye-opening event! And, you can watch and learn online from home or work.
We hope you’ll join us virtually!
For children,
Autumn Leva
Vice President, Strategy
Because of COVID-19, everyone is homeschooling. Bringing school closer to home may be a good thing, considering what many kids are learning in schools.
Ian Rowe, who is the CEO of the Public Prep charter school network in New York, tells of moving their headquarters to the South Bronx, an area that is impoverished both economically and educationally. While scouting out the area, they noticed a blue Winnebago truck that was a welcome fixture in the neighborhood.
On the truck, in graffiti, was “Who’s Your Daddy?” The truck turned out to be a mobile DNA testing center charging $350-$500 to answer questions such as: “Is she my sister?” or “Are you my father?” Demand was so high that a second truck was added. The owner said, “For years, many were carrying around a huge burden. They live daily without the assurances most people take for granted, such as: Who is my mother? Who is my brother? Am I really who I think I am?”
Rowe’s research showed that the severe educational disparities between this district and others were not due to geography, economics, and race, but were related more to family structure. In its 2010 report, “Family Structure and Children’s Health in the United States,” the National Center for Health Statistics reported that children showing the most consistently positive health outcomes were raised in nuclear families, “with two married parents, who are each biological or adoptive parents to all children in the family.”
The well-known challenges effecting children in single-parent homes makes me wonder why schools seem to be so bent on promoting Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE), which in reality teaches and encourages students to have sex. CSE perpetuates the cycle that brings about consistently negative outcomes. I believe we can raise the bar for better outcomes.
I recently spoke with Maryann Mosac, president of a wonderful organization called ASCEND. ASCEND promotes SRA curriculum or Sexual Risk Avoidance, another name for abstinence. What she said thoroughly surprised me, but she had the facts to back her up: “Teens say they feel pressured to have sex in most sex-ed programs.”
- 40 percent of 18- and 19-year-olds say their contraceptive-focused sex-ed classes make sex seem like an expectation.
- More than 1 in 5 teens say classroom condom demonstrations make them feel sex is expected. Check out the stats for yourself.
By law, abstinence is the preferred curriculum in Rhode Island, yet that is not followed in many school districts. When schools re-open, FPA will be working with conservative family-oriented legislators (yes, they do exist) to ensure better outcomes for children. Making Rhode Island a state where God is Honored, Religious Freedom Flourishes, Families Thrive and Life is Cherished begins in the family!
Sincerely,
Dave Aucoin
Chairman, Board of Advisors – Rhode Island