My own memories of “back to school” are happy ones filled with excitement over new folders, pens, clothes, friends, and things to learn.

For parents, though, back to school is an increasingly anxious time, and ensuring that our kids are safe in every way is the top priority.

That’s why Family Policy Alliance teamed up with our friends at Focus on the Family to create the only Back to School Guide for Parents.

Inside The Guide:

• Comprehensive information on important topics, such as:
  • How to protect your child from inappropriate or biased material in the classroom
  • What to do when you find offensive or explicit books in your school library, and
  • How to guard your child’s safety in school restrooms and locker rooms
• Details about your rights and your children’s rights
• Suggestions about how to respectfully advocate on behalf of your child
• Guidance on how to talk with your children about sensitive and difficult subjects
• Links to additional helpful articles and resources

Learn How to Protect Your Child:

• In the Classroom
• In School Health Rooms, Clinics, & Counseling Offices
• In School Locker Rooms & Bathrooms
• On Sports Teams
• During Lunchtime, Free-time, or in Student-Run Clubs
• On School Internet, Wi-Fi, and Electronic Devices
• In School Libraries & on School Databases
• By Exercising School Choice

Download your free copy today!

How would you respond if you discovered your school clinic was dispensing contraceptives to your child — without informing you? Or if a boy took a spot on your daughter’s high school soccer team because he felt like a girl? Or if you found out your six-year-old child’s teacher is reading books about gender-confused children to the whole classroom?

We’re concerned too. We read the news and receive numerous phone calls, emails, and letters from parents, grandparents, and family members every week. They tell us what’s happening at their children’s schools and ask for help responding.

We pray Back to School—for Parents is a blessing to you and your family as you navigate the challenges of sending your children back into the classroom this month.

DOWNLOAD FREE GUIDE

Standing with you,

Autumn Leva,
Sr VP of Strategy

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Friends,

This week, the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) announced their new and revised Social Studies Standards as a rule for all public schools and state charters in New Mexico. The controversy over this new curriculum is that there is heavy concern about the presence of Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ+ agenda elements that begin in the kindergarten classroom and grow from one grade level to the next.

Many letters and voices flooded the PED during the public comment period that expressed concern over the proposed standards as “divisive, biased, or negative,” as well as concern that the new standards “embody critical race theory.”  Concern was also voiced regarding the topic of “identity” within the standard.

Unfortunately, while many concerns were noted, the PED revisions, released this week, have been ineffective in removing elements of CRT and introducing the LGBTQ+ agenda into the education standard as early as Kindergarten.

New Mexico families are under attack as this Woke agenda takes position to fill the classroom and threatens to hijack our children’s education.

So, what can we do?

The legislative process still exists! Although the PED would make parents and teachers believe that there is no other option, we can stand strong!

• We can demand meaningful standards in education through the avenue of our elected officials.
• We can demand transparency in education in order to give parents the opportunity to direct if, when, where, and how their child is exposed to material that is contrary to our conservative values.

Some good news…

Here at Family Policy Alliance of New Mexico, we are working on a Transparency in Education Act that will allow parents rights to be protected in the classroom. We will share more information in the months to come regarding this bill and the sponsors who have agreed to introduce it in the next legislative session.

It’s time to take action!

• Please partner with us in prayer and support as we prepare and develop this vital piece of legislation.
• Contact your Legislators and demand meaningful standards in education that are free of divisive and inappropriate content.

My husband and I have four children. We do not wish them to be ignorant to the things that are happening in our world, but we absolutely expect to be able to teach them in our own time and on our own terms. Every parent has the right to do the same. Will you stand with us to protect New Mexico families?

Standing for our families,

Jodi Hendricks
Executive Director

Rachel Levine, President Biden’s pick for Deputy Secretary at the Health and Human Services Department, has a message for transgender-identifying students. Levine is a biological male who identifies as a woman.

 

“Back to school” is a driving force for most American families this month. Even the Biden Administration, bringing to bear the weight of three major departments—the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice—is joining in with a message for students. Specifically, students who identify as transgender.

These three departments released a video this month welcoming transgender-identifying students back to school. Their message? Transgender-identifying students have a “right” to access harmful and experimental hormones to “transition” their bodies, and girls no longer have a right to fair competition in sports.

It’s a bit of an ironic message. Children struggling with how they feel in their God-given bodies have an invented right to harm and even sterilize themselves before they reach the age of 18—yet they can’t even purchase cough syrup over-the-counter.

Meanwhile, young female athletes, who actually do have a legal right under Title IX to fair competition reserved only for girls, no longer have that right. That’s because a boy who identifies as a girl—at any time, for any reason—must be allowed to compete on girls’ teams and access girls’ championship and scholarship opportunities.

It’s also disturbing that the role of parents in raising and caring for their children —and in major decisions about physically altering their bodies to look more like the opposite sex—was missing from the video.

And the video didn’t stop there. The Biden officials also took direct shots at states whose lawmakers are boldly fighting to protect children. They criticized West Virginia for saving girls’ sports for only girls—among seven other states. And they called out Arkansas for being the first state in the nation to pass a law prohibiting harmful and experimental “gender transition” on children.

Family Policy Alliance’s message to these states: Keep up the good work! Our mission is to help as many other states as possible follow your lead in protecting children and pushing back against the Biden Administration’s harmful LGBT agenda.

Family Policy Alliance also has a very different Back-to-School message than the Biden Administration. We partnered with our friends at Focus on the Family to release the first-ever, parent-focused back-to-school guide:  Back to School—for Parents.

The Guide includes practical help on how to protect your child at school, as well as loving help for parents on how to talk with children about these difficult issues. The Guide addresses concerns parents may have for their children:

• In the classroom (including biased or inappropriate curriculum)
• In school health rooms, clinics, or counselor’s offices
• In bathrooms or locker rooms
• On sports teams
• During lunchtime, free time, or in student-run clubs
• On school internet, Wi-Fi, and electronic devices
• In school libraries and databases

Download your free copy of Back to School—for Parents here!

Our friends at the American College of Pediatricians said: “Back to School—for Parents is the most important book a parent will ever read.”

The Biden Administration has made their position clear. They want access to our children to advance their agenda, and parents who disagree should be side-stepped.

It is more important for today’s children, perhaps more than any other generation, for parents to be both informed and equipped to protect their children. That is the heart behind Back to School—for Parents.

So, to the parents sending their children back to school—we stand with you as you protect your young ones, raise them according to biblical values, and safeguard their futures!

To the states and state lawmakers passing good legislation that protects children from harmful political agendas—we stand with you as you face political criticism and backlash from Big Business, Big Tech and Woke DC!

For families and for His glory,

Autumn Leva
Vice President for Strategy

 

P.S. Family Policy Alliance is making it a top priority to equip parents, help parents engage in the political process when they need to protect their families, and train and equip lawmakers to boldly advance family values. The needs are growing, and we need your generous support! Please consider a gift today!

Give Now

If you lived in the 80’s, you might remember the public service announcement that came on TV each night after watching the safe sitcoms of a distant era of prime-time television. Just as bedtime approached before the nightly news, a short, but repetitive, question was asked to parents every night, “It’s 10 PM. Do you know where your children are?”

Nearly forty years later, the world is not same. Those who were kids are now the adults, major networks offer few family-friendly programs, and the question parents have to answer has dramatically changed. Sadly, we must now ask: “It’s 8 AM. Do you know what gender your children are?”

Today’s school is not like the school where you grew up. In many places, children are taught radical ideas about sex, families, and even our own history. They are pressured to adopt these viewpoints for themselves, even – in some cases – without their parents’ knowledge.

Take New Jersey, for example. There, school districts throughout New Jersey have adopted policies that prohibit teachers from telling parents the gender identity of their own children.

This means that in New Jersey, your child can leave your house identifying as the gender that matches their biological sex, but then change their name, pronoun, clothes, and self-proclaimed gender identity at school, and you would never know.

And that’s just in one state! Stories like this are why we’re here to help.  It’s back-to-school season, and now is the perfect time to download your FREE copy of our e-book Back to School – for Parents!

It’s your must-have guide to protecting your children in the classroom and beyond. Designed with you in mind, our guide is organized by area of the school. Have concerns about your child’s school-issued devices? We have answers! Want to know about protecting your child’s safety in school locker rooms and bathrooms? We have you covered!

We provide you with curriculum examples, what to watch for in homework, how to ask questions at your school, and how to take action when something is wrong. Plus, the guide – which is coauthored by Focus on the Family – provides tips on how to talk with your child about critical issues they may encounter at school and elsewhere.

Download your FREE copy today!

It’s back to school season. Parents will need to answer this question as their children walk on the school bus this coming school year: “It’s 8 AM. Do I know what gender my children are?”

With our guide, we’ll help you answer that question – and protect your child in many other ways, too. Get your copy today!

Sincerely,

Meridian Baldacci
Policy and Communications Strategist

 

The lyrics are rather disturbing…

You say we all lead lives you don’t respect. But you’re just frightened. You think that we’ll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Funny, just this once, you’re correct.” “We’ll convert your children – happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly and you will barely notice it…” “Just like you’re worried, they’ll change their group of friends, you won’t approve of where they go at night. And you’ll be disgusted when they start finding things online that you kept far from their sight…”

In case you missed it,  the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir (SFGMC) released a video on July 1, proclaiming to America that they are going to “convert your children”. The well-produced song declares that it is only a matter of time before the gay agenda “comes home” – to your home that is.

While it is hard to listen to this message, it is essential that parents do in fact listen and take heed.

The Choir claimed after its release that the song was completely “satirical” and intended as “tongue-in-cheek humor,” but the video belies the truth of a persistent agenda playing out daily in entertainment, pop culture, corporate America, public policy, politics and education.

The song happily tells parents that regardless of the spiritual values children are taught at home, the LGBT movement has aims to unapologetically undermine those values in order to advance their cause.

From the Biden Administration all the way down to your city council and local school board, LGBT activists are working to quietly write public policy that will coerce not only a tolerance of LGBT lifestyles, but also in many ways, require an acceptance and affirmation of those lifestyle choices. Corporate America, Hollywood and Big Tech are all there too.

Here are just a few ways this is playing out before our very eyes:

Government

The Equality Act – currently under consideration in Congress – would place sexual orientation and gender identity into the US Civil Rights code as a protected class along with race, national origin, veteran status and others. This would make any disagreement with this sexual ideology considered “illegal discrimination”—by parents, in schools, in doctor’s offices, on sports teams, in the marketplace, in any public place, and even in churches and faith-based schools or other organizations. It is the most dangerous legislation we’ve seen come out of Congress.

In a stunning act of administrative action, the Biden administration has now—without the real authority to do so—rewritten Title IX to require public schools across the US to validate gender identity – that means bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams no longer must conform to children’s real biological sex as male or female. It’s a sad irony, given that Title IX was originally enacted to ensure that girls had equal access to educational and athletic opportunities with boys.

Similarly, many school systems have adopted policies that validate same-sex attraction or even transgenderism among students. A child may leave home as a boy but live and be treated as a girl at school. By design, parents generally have no idea this is happening as schools will not tell parents about the child’s new identity. It is all a secret, and the school is on board. The LGBT lobby frequently advances this very secret and subtle tactic, and it damages not only the transitioning child, but also leads to the indoctrination of all other classmates aiming to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism in public schools.

Local governments and even your Chamber of Commerce are in on the agenda too – passing so-called nondiscrimination ordinances that provide new protections for sexual orientation and gender identity under local laws that compromise changing rooms, locker rooms and bathrooms at public locations. These local efforts allegedly aim to benefit “equality” and even “economic development” but ignore religious beliefs, parental rights and safety.

Entertainment/Hollywood

American children can hardly watch children’s programming, much less television commercials, without being exposed to homosexuality or transgender ideology.  The entertainment industry is using popular cartoons such as Arthur, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Sponge Bob Squarepants and Doc McStuffins, just to name a few, to target children as young as toddlers with sexualized content. Through very subtle yet crafty portrayals, and “bit by bit” as the song goes; they are seeking to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism through their messaging to children – and you.

Social Media/Technology and Corporate America

Lastly, big tech, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Tik-tok and most other social media platforms seek to advance the LGBT agenda. Whether it is actively celebrating so-called PRIDE month in June, or more subversively censoring or downgrading content critical of the LGBT agenda, big tech is engaged in the persistent indoctrination process. The same goes for numerous corporations, many of whom classify a biblical view of human sexuality as hate, instantly dismissing parental rights and Christian beliefs.

So yes, parents, the SFGMC was telling the truth. The LGBT agenda is looking to change the values you are teaching your children.

So what do we do?

For truth,

Robert Noland
Communications Manager

 

A proverb often attributed to George Washington states: “Government … like fire, is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.”

 

While it’s uncertain that George Washington really spoke those words, the proverb still rings true and captures the challenge that has faced humanity since the first governments were formed in history. Government can not only allow us to protect ourselves from external aggression but can also be used to oppress and coerce citizens.

Unfortunately, history demonstrates that governmental oppression has been far more common than liberty – and this fact proves painfully true in the realm of education.

Last month, a parent from Sweden emailed a pastor named John Piper with a concern that struck close to home. In his email, he described a national education system overtaken with the radical extremes of modern Marxist thought, specifically with ideas that teach that maleness and femaleness is defined by how you feel about your body rather than biology. He added that Sweden has placed so many restrictions upon Christian and private schools that they are forced into the position of teaching that same ideology. In Sweden, an attempt to remove your child from such indoctrination by teaching them within the home is grounds for the government to remove them from home and force them into foster care.

Such stories are rightly shocking to families in America, but we have to understand that it is a clash of worldviews that creates stories such as these. Central to the clash is the question of whether families or governments should have the primary responsibility of raising children.

There is no doubt that families can benefit when government enacts policies that help families to thrive. Also, government and civil society receive tremendous benefit from the traditional family. The clash comes when some view government as the prime authority in deciding what is best for the child.

That mindset is popular among some within the government and in academia. And because of that mindset among the liberal elites, Americans face growing pressure to bow to certain “experts” within the public school system. These “experts” teach ideas such as “Critical Race Theory” and the gender spectrum (including a “non-binary” gender in which someone is neither a man nor a woman). They teach that boys should be allowed to play in girls’ sports (disregarding the very real physical advantage boys have), and they instruct our children that the whole world is subdivided by a Marxist narrative of “The Oppressed” and “The Oppressor.”

When such ideas grow within a government, that government is on the cusp of changing from servant to master. The government that we witnessed in this year’s legislative session in Santa Fe displayed a disdain for the family that should set off alarm bells.

Because of your help, Family Policy Alliance of New Mexico has been blessed to provide a greater voice in speaking about these crucial topics as they surface in our state. Thank you for standing with us to ensure that the government is a source of protection, not tyranny.

The Family Policy Alliance of New Mexico Team

Are the kids in your life back to school, or headed there soon? Whether they’re returning in-person or online, you may find yourself concerned about the kind of material your children or grandchildren are exposed to in the classroom. Students as young as kindergarten face increasingly sexualized content and may encounter material opposed to your fundamental beliefs – and that’s just in the classroom.

Thankfully, parents don’t have to feel powerless in the face of the January back-to-school season. Our new easy-to-read guide, Back to School – for Parents, explains what you need to know about potential areas for concern in your child’s school, and helps you understand what you can do to protect your child.

In the article below, a version of which appeared in The Daily Signal, our Policy Manager and attorney Stephanie Curry shares more about the FREE guide, available for download at our website. Check it out today!

Meridian Baldacci
Policy and Communications Strategist

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How to Stop Schools from Parenting Your Children
By Stephanie Curry

I’m tired of schools trying to play the role of surrogate parents.

Like too many parents across our nation, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the radical social and political ideas that are being forced upon our children in public schools.

While I’m raising my children with biblically based morals and values at home, schools are undermining and refuting those same lessons in the classroom. They’re striving to replace my role as parent, and that isn’t right.

Parents don’t just have a vague and general prerogative to parent their children. Parenting is a fundamental right. It is a foundational cornerstone of a civilized society and a right that is clearly defined and recognized by our constitutional law.

This fundamental right to parent includes the right for us to decide what kind of educational, moral, and religious upbringing our children will have, without unreasonable government interference.

Unfortunately, it seems this ancient right is lost on our modern-day school systems, which work overtime to teach our children a radical moral code of sexual identity—one that violates the beliefs of countless families.

We don’t send our children to public school so they can be forced to consider the morality of sexual lifestyle choices.

We don’t expect our first graders to be prompted to speculate about whether their biological sex is a question that has multiple answers.

We don’t expect teachers to lecture our children about the moral consequences of voting for one candidate over another or to tell our children (illegally) that they can’t pray at lunchtime.

And we certainly don’t send our children to school to be offered free irreversible medical treatments like abortions or encouraged to consider cross-sex hormones without our knowledge or consent.

Once the rare anecdote, these unexpected scenarios are now overflowing across the nation. There is an alarming trend that concerned parents need to know about. What exactly is happening in our schools, and what can parents do to protect their children?

At Family Policy Alliance®, we have released a new book, “Back to School—for Parents,” which takes parents on a journey through each part of the school system where student and parental rights violations are trending.

The guide explains the legal rights you and your child have in the classroom, school bathrooms, sports teams, the nurse’s office, and more.

For example, in the classroom, you have the federal right to view your child’s lesson plans, observe class, and review curriculum. You also have the constitutional right to opt your child out of classroom content that violates your religious and moral beliefs.

In the nurse’s office, you have the right to limit the type of medical treatment your child receives in school, such as declining all “abortion-related” materials.

You have the right to testify at local school board meetings regarding concerns you have.

“Back to School—for Parents” gives you specific suggestions you can carry out today to maintain your rights to parent and define morality for your child even when you send them to school.

“Back to School—for Parents” lays out precisely what you need to know to face the unexpected. So, if your child is silenced in class for their faith, or you encounter radical sexual rights-based education, or you discover what can only be described as pornography on your school’s research database, you’ll be empowered to know exactly what to do to ensure your child is protected.

In addition, co-publisher Focus on the Family has provided guidance for each topic on how to talk to your child about difficult issues with a compassionate, honest, and forthright perspective. The book walks you through conversations with your child on difficult topics, like sexuality, identity, pornography, and more.

With this guide, you no longer have to wonder how you can possibly protect your child’s moral, ethical, and religious beliefs at school—a place where some of the biggest controversial issues of this generation are argued.

We believe parents—not the government—are best at parenting. “Back to School—for Parents” will help provide much-needed support families are seeking so they can do what they do best—parent their child.

The guide is free for download at Family Policy Alliance’s website. Check it out and share it with friends and family today.