Teachers for students as young as elementary school are allegedly being trained to discuss gender identity and conceal students’ preferred pronouns from their parents in a Minnesota school district.
Two parents read a letter written by an Osseo Area Schools (ISD 279) elementary school teacher during the district’s school board meeting Tuesday. The teacher claims that ISD 279 employees were required to attend a training called “Creating Gender-Inclusive Schools” earlier this year.
According to KATU2 ABC, The letter detailed several aspects of the training that the ISD 279 elementary school teacher felt uncomfortable with, including employees being asked to discuss their “definition of gender” before learning the district’s own definition.
“I immediately felt uncomfortable because I had a feeling that if I gave the definition of gender that I agree with, I would be labeled as judgmental because the first agreement given for the meeting that night was to replace judgment with curiosity,” parent Deb Spratt said, reading the teacher’s letter aloud to the ISD 279 school board. “There would be no time for me to explain further that I care about everyone even when I disagree with their belief system.”
The “definition of gender” ISD 279 employees were allegedly provided with stated that “gender is determined by time and space.” Educators were then allegedly told that “because of white supremacy, gender expansiveness has been suppressed.”
“Hearing the mindset that begins at the upper level of our school district showed me that, as a staff member, I am being pressured to teach concepts in direct conflict with my beliefs, which are not in alignment with that perspective of gender,” Spratt read.
To the teacher, another example of that pressure was a Google form that ISD 279 employees were asked to make available to students. The form allows students to “indicate” which name and pronouns they would like to use at school and which they’d like to “use with their parents.”
“Is this allowed without parents’ knowledge?” Spratt read. “Regardless, is it now our job to keep secrets?” The letter also described a “gender snowperson,” a tool for discussing gender identity, biological sex, and sexual orientation allegedly shown during the training.
The ISD 279 teacher claims she was instructed to use the phrase “romantically attracted to” when teaching “our youngest learners” if “the word ‘sexual’ is going to be a problem.”
