Author: standforfortworth

The Dallas Observer reported on July 3 that a Fort Worth ISD spokesman said, “Parents are notified at the beginning of the school year that they have the opportunity to review all of the materials. They can review anything they want. All they have to do is let us know.”  This is false.

Starting in April, numerous parents let the District know they wanted to review the 6th grade human sexuality curriculum.  In fact, in at least one email exchange, a parent requests to see their child’s health workbook after being initially provided with an unused copy of the workbook.

Then the teacher admits to trashing the student workbooks instead of providing them to concerned parents.  These emails were dated May 25…more than a month after parents had first raised concerns in April and ten days after Stand for Fort Worth first reported this matter on May 15.

We have not been provided a copy of any student workbook.  However, we have obtained a copy of one page of the workbook.  The page details an assignment to visit one of three “health” websites and evaluate its content.

Two of the three websites contain explicit sexual orientation and gender identity information that parents were not given notice of and did not consent to their children being exposed to.

One of the websites highlights a link to “Sexual Attraction and Orientation.”  Here are some excerpts from the page:

It’s common for teens to be attracted to or have sexual thoughts about people of the same sex and the opposite sex.

Some people might go beyond just thinking about it and experiment with sexual experiences with people of their own sex or of the opposite sex.

Transgender isn’t really a sexual orientation — it’s a gender identity. Gender is another word for male or female. Transgender people may have the body of one gender, but feel that they are the opposite gender, like they were born into the wrong type of body.

Although not everyone is comfortable with the idea of sexual orientation differences and there’s still plenty of prejudice around, being gay is getting to be less of a “big deal” than it used to be.

If 11 year-old students click on “Transgender,” here are some of the selections they will find:

Some transgender people know they feel “different” from the time they’re young kids. Others start sensing it around puberty or even later.

Some people decide to physically change their bodies — through surgery or taking hormones — to match the gender they feel they really are.

As with any group, not all transgender people think or want the same things. It all depends on what that particular person needs to feel most comfortable in both body and mind.

To consider that nearly 18,000 eleven and twelve year-olds have been exposed to this content without parental notice and consent is shocking.  Denying parental access to this material is against the law.  And the Fort Worth ISD is lying when they say parents can review anything they want.

Help us hold Fort Worth ISD accountable by signing the petition.

Nearly two years to the day that Fort Worth ISD announced its infamous transgender policy in 2016, parents discovered the District has been teaching 5,000 sixth graders per year in, among other things, transgender ideology since 2016 – despite the District’s repeal of the transgender policy.

Parents at the McLean 6th Grade campus recently started hearing jaw-dropping reports from their students’ health class.  At the beginning of the school year, parents received a state-mandated Notice of Intent to Provide Human Sexuality Instruction that said:

“The focus of these lessons is for the students to learn:

The consequences of sexual activity and the benefits of abstinence as the only means of totally avoiding pregnancy and STDs

Effective words and actions for resisting sexual pressure and remaining abstinent

How to use effective refusal skills to resist peer pressure”

Sounds good…except when students recently started coming home and sharing what they were learning it didn’t match up with the Notice.  Students were told by school officials they could not take the Health textbook home.  They were even instructed not to take pictures of it in class.  At least one child was told to stop “tattling” to his parents.  And at least one parent was denied access to the book by their child’s teachers.  These actions raised additional concerns.

The school principal called in Georgi Roberts, the District’s Director of Health and Physical Education.  Ms. Roberts engaged in a Q&A period with parents at the school on Thursday, April 26.  When parents asked why students could not bring the textbooks home, Ms. Roberts replied, “How many of you can honestly say that if your child brought that book home every day it would go back the next day?”  Parents groaned and immediately pointed out students take home books everyday and return them the next.

What’s in the curriculum for 12 year olds?  Excerpts from the Teacher’s Guide and instructional Powerpoint slides labeled “Aspects of Sexuality” that were allegedly used in the Health class state (bolded in curriculum):

• People can have different types of sexual attractions, or sexual orientations. They may be heterosexual or straight, gay or lesbian, or bisexual. Not being sexually attracted to anybody is also normal and OK.
• How people see themselves in relation to being male or female is called gender identity. People who are transgender are born as one sex, but feel more like the other. Gender roles are ideas about how males or females should behave. These ideas can be influenced by a person’s family, culture, peers and society.
• What if someone’s choices around sex, gender identity or feelings of attraction for others are different from yours?
• Do you think it is important to respect the different ways individual people may express these aspects of their sexuality?
• What might be the benefits of respecting these differences?
• You may not make the same choices about sex, understanding someone’s feelings about his or her gender, or share the same sexual orientation, but respecting these differences creates an atmosphere of acceptance and support that can help all people understand sexuality, take care of their bodies, communicate clearly and achieve good sexual health.

Does this material sound similar to the Notice?  No.

Does this explain why textbooks aren’t allowed to go home?  Yes.

Fort Worth ISD is teaching the values of the sexual revolution when they teach, “You may not make the same choices about sex, understanding someone’s feelings about his or her gender, or share the same sexual orientation, but respecting these differences creates an atmosphere of acceptance.”  Forcing students and families to accept aspects of sexuality that violate sincerely held religious beliefs discriminates against thousands of Muslim, Jewish and Christian families in Fort Worth ISD.

Texas public school curriculum is governed by the Texas Education Code and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) requirements found throughout the Texas Administrative Code.  Section 28.004 of the Education Code says “a school district shall make all curriculum materials used in the district’s human sexuality instruction available for reasonable public inspection.”

Teaching kids about transgenderism is outside the scope of TEKS and should be off limits for public school classrooms.  Hiding it from parents or any member of the public is against the law.