Stand for Fort Worth

A quick search of the Fort Worth ISD library catalog for the keyword “transgender” reveals 98 different records totaling almost 275 copies of books! Nearly half of the copies have been acquired by Fort Worth ISD since the beginning of 2016 – three months after Superintendent Kent Scribner’s arrival.

The titles range from Rethinking Normal: A Memoir In Transition, Coming Out As Transgender and Transphobia: Deal With It And Be A Gender Transcender to Transgender Role Models And Pioneers, Transgender Rights And Protections, and Identifying As Transgender.  These books don’t include many others found by searching the terms “gender identity” and “LGBT.”

Unfortunately, John T. White Elementary School is one of the worst performing schools in the District, but they have a book for elementary kids called Beautiful Music for Ugly Children described as:

“Gabe has always identified as a boy, but he was born with a girl’s body. With his new public access radio show gaining in popularity, Gabe struggles with romance, friendships, and parents–all while trying to come out as transgendered.”

John T. White students may not leave school being able to perform basic math, but they will know more about taking hormones and having sex reassignment surgery than most adults.

Thirteen campuses have copies of the fourth-grade level Lily and Dunkin including Sellars Elementary, Westcreek Elementary, Rosemont Middle, and McLean Middle.  This innocuous sounding title talks about hormone blockers, sex change surgery, and taking estrogen and is described by the publisher as:

“Lily Jo McGrother, born Timothy McGrother, is a girl. But being a girl is not so easy when you look like a boy. Especially when you’re in the eighth-grade. Norbert Dorfman, nicknamed Dunkin Dorfman, is bipolar and has just moved from the New Jersey town he’s called home for the past thirteen years. One summer morning, Lily Jo McGrother meets Dunkin Dorfman, and their lives forever change.”

Lily B. Clayton parents may be surprised to see their third-grader reading Gracefully Grayson in which “Grayson, a transgender twelve-year-old, learns to accept her true identity and share it with the world.”

Other keywords were searched to know how transgender content compares in number to other topics.

The keyword “quantum physics” yields 44 records and “3-d printing” yields 35 records.  The keyword “petroleum engineering” yields 8 records and “aviation engineering” yields 8 records.  The keyword “calculus” yields 55 records while the keyword “trigonometry” results in 20 records.

It’s easier for Fort Worth ISD students to find books about transgender sex education than science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) topics.

Sex education content regarding transgenderism and gender identity is educationally unsuitable for school-aged children and most certainly should not be provided to students without parental notice and consent.  And the fact that Fort Worth ISD taxpayers have funded more books about transgenderism than basic STEM topics is an embarrassment to our city.  Fort Worth ISD needs to be focused on preparing students for the workforce – not a sex change.

Welcome back to school, teachers, staff, students and families.  We are grateful for the hard working folks who are educating our children.  Unfortunately, we are saddened to learn this first week of school that Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Kent Scribner and his administration, including Georgi Roberts, have issued a new sixth grade human sexuality curriculum notice that still fails to inform parents that students are being taught the notion that they can change their sex.  The District’s 6,000 sixth graders are being taught one thing in health class and another thing in science class.

A document comparison showing the new notice compared to last year’s notice reveals several alarming changes.  First, the District deleted information regarding opportunities for parental involvement in the development of the human sexuality curriculum, including information regarding opportunities to serve on the local school health advisory council. Second, the District deleted language informing parents of their right to remove a student from any part of the district’s human sexuality instruction without subjecting the student to any disciplinary action, academic penalty, or other sanction imposed by the district or the student’s school.  These changes raise serious questions about the District’s violation of parental rights and whether students who do not wish to participate will be disciplined or penalized academically.

Section 28.004(i) of the Texas Education Code provides:

(i) Before each school year, a school district shall provide written notice to a parent of each student enrolled in the district of the board of trustees’ decision regarding whether the district will provide human sexuality instruction to district students. If instruction will be provided, the notice must include:

(1) a summary of the basic content of the district’s human sexuality instruction to be provided to the student, including a statement informing the parent of the instructional requirements under state law;

(2) a statement of the parent’s right to:

(A) review curriculum materials as provided by Subsection (j); and

(B) remove the student from any part of the district’s human sexuality instruction without subjecting the student to any disciplinary action, academic penalty, or other sanction imposed by the district or the student’s school; and

(3) information describing the opportunities for parental involvement in the development of the curriculum to be used in human sexuality instruction, including information regarding the local school health advisory council established under Subsection (a).

Not only does the District’s new notice fail to adequately inform parents of the content of human sexuality instruction, it also fails to comply with state law.  This legal deficiency cannot be remedied for the current school year because the law requires that the notice be provided before each school year.  Now that the school year has commenced, the failure of adequate notice should prohibit Fort Worth ISD from providing human sexuality instruction to sixth graders during this school year.

Additionally, the District inserted an option for parents to “opt in” to instruction as well as “opt out.”  In light of the Notice’s lack of transparency regarding the curriculum content, this is disingenuous and creates a veneer of parental acceptance when, in fact, parents are still not being adequately informed of the content.  It doesn’t matter whether parents are given the option to “opt in to” or “opt out of” instruction if they don’t know what is in the curriculum.  At the very least, the notice should have stated the curriculum includes material regarding sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and transgenderism.

Students are back to school, and parent and taxpayers are back to holding Fort Worth ISD accountable.