Confronting Ideology in Public Education
How One Parent Successfully Opted Out
by Kathy Faucher
The Bad Stuff is in “Good” School Districts, Even Yours.
This is a story about parents’ rights in public education. What can we do about it? The following is a description of the recent struggles endured by parents in my school district. I hope you will read it and if your child is a student in public schools, you will be inspired to do something to protect your parental rights. Share this story with your spouse, significant other, friends, neighbors, anyone who is open to listening. Here is what I and other parents did in our district.
In February of 2022, while attending my stepdaughter’s wedding in Texas, I was asked by an attendee if critical race theory was being taught at my school district in Nebraska. Without missing a beat, I replied: “No, I live in a good school district that focuses on core academics.”
No sooner had I returned home to Bennington, Nebraska, a small town on the edge of Omaha, when my perception of being sheltered from American university-inspired racial and gender studies was shattered.
Scrolling through Facebook, I paused when a set of comments caught my attention. Parents in my district were debating, with obvious anger, whether it was appropriate for the school district to provide training to teachers and students on racial bias and gender concepts such as preferred pronouns. I looked up from my laptop and asked my husband, “What in the hell is going on?” I was aware of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) training occurring at corporations as well as the pronoun usage on LinkedIn profiles. I was of the thought that these were niceties to make our world a more pleasant place for everyone; however, these are children. Shouldn’t their time in tax-payer funded schools be spent learning the fundamentals of reading, writing, and problem solving? Here is where it all went off the rails.
Through a series of Facebook messages, texts and phone calls, I swiftly became acquainted with concerned parents in my community.
What happened to put these parents in such an uproar? I had to find out, and what I uncovered took my breath away. The level of covert planning by the school district to bring in DEI training was truly incredible.
Oursourcing the Woke to Avoid Accountability
In an effort to bring more multicultural awareness to the schools, the district contracted with a DEI consultant out of Omaha called Equity Nerd. I reviewed what information I could find out about Equity Nerd online, and gathered that the consultant mainly billed itself as a corporate trainer.
I also found this consultant is intertwined with the Democrat Party. One of the members at the time of my research was the chair of the Douglas County Democratic Party Women’s Caucus and served on the Leadership Team for The Women’s Fund of Omaha Circles. The Women’s Fund of Omaha Circles advocates for comprehensive sexuality education as well as unrestricted access to sexual and reproductive health services. (https://www.omahawomensfund.org/our-work/sexual-literacy/)
This is an example of how school districts backdoor politics and social justice teaching into the curriculum to introduce children to these agendas. Bennington had contracted for $7,000 to have the trainer provide training in “creating a culture of trust and allyship, acceptance of diversity and allyship toward marginalized identities, building the business case for equity and inclusion, acknowledging our bias and identifying microaggressions.”
Equity Nerd gave an initial presentation to Bennington teachers, who promptly complained to the administration, thus the planned training for students was cancelled. According to some staff, the training included introduction to personal pronouns.
Through a series of FOIA requests to the school, parents learned that a portion of the contract was paid out of the school’s Activity Fund (which is meant for student extracurricular activities). This meant the curriculum PowerPoint presentations by Equity Nerd did not have to be legally shown to parents upon request. What’s more, the district planned to pay the balance due to Equity Nerd with funds from the school’s foundation, from donors who most certainly would not all agree on the merits of Equity Nerd. The avoidance of using educational funds for this training had to be intentional, as it negated any liability the district might otherwise incur.
One parent repeatedly requested from the school, from Equity Nerd and eventually the Nebraska Attorney General the content of the presentations. The parent was denied the request and informed by the AG office that the school could not be compelled to produce the material.
(Editor’s Note: Schools have skirted student privacy laws by outsourcing the indoctrination and data collection. The third party private contractors routinely avoid transparency by claiming their curriculum is “proprietary.” See articles about Student Privacy HERE and HERE.)
At the end of the day, the district claimed that the training was facilitated to comply with Title IX to prevent discrimination. I then realized the tentacles of the federal government are entrenched in all public schools. The mandate is coming from above, and whether or not administrators personally agree with the agenda, they comply.
Vector Solutions, More DEI Training!
Unfortunately, the cancellation of the Equity Nerd training is just the beginning of this story. The more questions I asked around the community, the more I unraveled. In place of this planned training for high school students, the district showed the students, during homeroom time without notifying parents, a video from Vector Solutions (https://www.vectorsolutions.com/resources/course-catalogs/k-12-diversity-inclusion-programs-brochure/) provided by the school district’s insurance company, Alicap.
The video sections were followed by quizzes. I found the quizzes to be benign. Overall, some of the content in the video was factual and informational about diversity and how we can find common ground and friendships despite our differences. This is how politically driven DEI works its way into schools and companies. The package on the outside (the wording) is often shiny and pretty, especially if you are not familiar with language such as allyship and the actual meaning.
What’s within the training is problematic. After the intro, the video began to show clips of children who identify as gay/bisexual/pansexual discussing how people offend them. A girl who appears to be a freshman or sophomore in high school was interviewed in the video and stated that there is nothing wrong with being a lesbian and some people like multiple genders.
A boy in the video stated: “I identify as a man and use he/him pronouns.”
Another student stated: “I identify as being gay.”
A girl stated: “I identify as a bisexual woman.”
A girl stated: “I identify as pansexual.” The child then explained that some peers tell her: “Oh you are bisexual.” She stated that this is not the same as being pansexual and this mislabel is offensive.
I was quite irked that my child had been enrolled into a gender studies seminar without my permission. (Vector Solutions is no longer being used at Bennington Schools.)
Social Emotional Learning, the Lie and the Reality
In the months that followed, my school district continued to show it was not slowing down on the DEI instruction. Similar to school districts across the country, Bennington signed up for a new “transformative” social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum without including parents in the decision-making process. The SEL program Second Step is now well known by those who follow the topic.
The program, developed by the “Committee for Children,” claims to focus on topics such as anti-bullying, allyship, goal setting and so forth. In reality, it is intended to “transform” the culture of the students and staff. (Learn more about SEL HERE and HERE.)
After this curriculum was presented to parents as the new SEL program in May of 2022, I submitted questions to the administration. The answers were chilling.
I asked if teachers would be able to opt out of the Second Step lessons if there was a conflict with the teacher’s personal or religious beliefs. The school district answered:
“Bennington teachers may share concerns about lessons and activities that make them uncomfortable. This is a sign to the administration that additional training is needed…Teachers are required to teach District curriculum and lessons.”
I took that to mean the indoctrination of teachers would continue until there was no dissent.
For obvious reasons, several parents took issue with having their children taught lessons from Second Step. Parents combed through the videos and found some objectionable material and decided they wanted to opt their children out of this program for kindergarten through eighth grade. Parents doubted that this SEL instruction would do much to prevent actual bullying, but certainly could give teachers a platform to discuss political and social ideology in a very biased manner.
Second Step Example, elementary school students taught to deny reality:
When Second Step was rolled out to students in August 2022, several parents promptly filed objection forms with the school to opt their children out of both school climate surveys and SEL. By law, the district has to allow opting out of surveys. But the ability to opt out of an entire curriculum was less clear.
Initially the school district would not grant parents’ requests. Parents were told they must cite the specific content they found to be objectionable in every one of the dozens of lessons. They were then told they must pick up their child from school during the 30-minute SEL time if they wished to opt out.
Second Step example, middle school students transform into social justice warriors:
It's important to point out here how difficult it can be to stand up for parental rights. Schools are stacked with lawyers and knowledgeable administrators, while parents are standing out on a ledge, rarely receiving support from school boards, which are largely made up of parents themselves. These board members have limited time and capacity to address issues, and oftentimes defer to the school’s standpoint.
Second Step example, what do you aspire to?
Parents Learn SEL is Optional After Consulting an Attorney
Parents in Bennington, luckily, showed courage and gumption in insisting on opting out of SEL. Some parents reached out to the Nebraska Department of Education, which affirmed that SEL is not a requirement in the state of Nebraska. One parent then solicited an attorney for representation. Shortly thereafter, the school relented and processed all opt-out requests. Some parents had their children leave the room for independent reading/study time, while other parents allowed their children to utilize workbooks from the prior SEL curriculum developed years ago that does not contain video content.
In an effort to strengthen transparency, Bennington posted on the district website the Second Step SEL lesson activities and worksheets. Unfortunately, the district was forced to remove the content by the vendor “Committee for Children.”
State-Sponsored Religion and the First Amendment
Do you believe your children or grandchildren should be taught certain ideologies, such as their inner sexuality, during classroom time? Or do you believe that such exploratory topics should be discussed elsewhere? If your answer is the latter, you should consider opting your child out of all ideological instruction.
First, review all applicable school board policies. Review the policies on religion in the school, opting out, teaching controversial content, and objecting to curriculum. If you don’t want to be caught off guard, and you would like to review all such material before it is taught to your child, file an objection form.
The Nebraska State Constitution Article I-4 on religious freedom states: “All persons have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. No person shall be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship against his consent, and no preference shall be given by law to any religious society, nor shall any interference with the rights of conscience be permitted.”
The Bennington school district policy 604.09 states that "no religious belief or non belief should be promoted by the school district or its employees" and "students and staff members should be excused from participating in practices which are contrary to their religious beliefs unless there are clear issues of overriding concern that would prevent it."
Is gender ideology instruction a forced form of worship or religious instruction in public schools? There are compelling arguments that it is. The 2S in LGBTQIA2S+ stands for Two-Spirit. Queer Theory and transgender instruction impart that a woman can be a person who is trapped in a man's biological body. This teaching is linked to religious structures called Gnosticism and Hermeticism, which teach the concepts of attaining esoteric knowledge (meaning understood by only a few). Is this starting to sound like a cult?
For me, the straw that broke the camel’s back was taking the time to peruse the school’s library catalogs. Inputting keywords, I and other parents found so many books in all the libraries concerning queer theory, LGBTQ pride and fictional tales that put down unsupportive parents as bigots. In reading the review of one book in particular that contains a sexually explicit scene, All Boys Aren’t Blue, I was struck by a description of the book that described the work as "healing, self-care, and living one’s truth" and "liberation of themselves." These are spiritual concepts rooted in queer theory. Sounds like religion to me.
Learn more about the religious nature of this movement HERE.
Why is this LGBTQIA2S+ narrative being pushed on our children? Because it wraps them up in politics, it obscures reality, it furthers the case for abortion. If you can be a man walking around in a biological female body, your unborn baby cannot be human if you deem it is not. You control science. Even more importantly, you don’t answer to higher power. Any such god grants authority to you.
Family Values are Worth Protecting
I have concluded that the LGBTQIA2S+ curriculum is a mythical hydra devouring the concepts parents traditionally think of in attaining a public education: American exceptionalism, independence, freedom of worship, the right to privacy, liberty, critical thinking in pursuit of a higher education.
As such, I filed an objection with my district. I don’t want ideological videos or training being slipped in behind my back. I want my child’s privacy to be respected. In accordance with this, I and other parents opted out of SEL and surveys. I then took the additional step of requesting to opt out of all LGBTQIA2S+ spiritual instruction. My request was twofold:
All school library materials requested to be checked out by my child will be placed on hold so I can review them.
All curriculum/instruction/training on LGBTQIA2S+ spirituality should be sent to me in advance for my review/approval.
The school granted my request, which I filed based on the 1st Amendment. This may seem onerous, even outrageous, but given the onslaught of social ideology material being implemented by the school district, it is what I feel I need to do in order to protect my child, in some form, from indoctrination.
Use my letter as a template:
Last of all, many people reading this will likely roll their eyes and proclaim, children are not being indoctrinated. Tell that to the parents across Nebraska who I have listened and talked to over the last 12 months. Their stories are heartbreaking. Their children have begun socially or medically transitioning their genders, their children have declared an alternate gender or pronoun ironically after the concept began being taught in schools. And some of their children who have latched on to the Cult have run away from home. Where did they go? To live with members of their new family – the LGBTQIA2S+ community.
Please do not assume your school is exempt from this indoctrination. If your child brings home an SEL worksheet about kindness and inclusion, you can scrutinize it and conclude that nothing controversial was taught that day. But do you know the title of the book that was read by the teacher or guidance counselor as part of the lesson? Unless your child tells you, you'll never know if your child had a lesson in queer theory. As I have said, the federal government is determined to push sexual/gender/critical theory into every classroom. If you look at your district, you will find it.
The author is a Nebraska Mom and a board member of Moms for Liberty-Douglas County