On rare occasion do Alaska public school educators openly air a distain for conservative parents, religious values or traditional views of morality and human sexuality. The nearly 400 pages of public testimony submitted on House Bill 105, however, provides a unique insight into the thinking of many school administrators, teachers, nurses and counselors when it comes to parental involvement surrounding issues like sex education and gender identity in Alaska’s schools.
Proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, HB 105 would bar public schools from hiding a child’s sexual identity or health records from parents, while requiring parental permission before educators discuss any sexual matters with students. It also requires schools to separate locker rooms and restrooms according to biological sex at birth.
The Watchman reviewed the voluminous testimony for and against the bill. While most letter writers did not reveal whether they worked in schools, 21 testifiers did openly identify themselves as Alaska educators who adamantly opposed HB 105. Many of their comments exhibit a deep-seated mistrust of parents, especially those who ascribe to socially conservative or religious values.
Below is a summary of these comments as they relate to parents, parental rights, sex education and the belief that schools have a right to hide the LGBTQ identity of children from their parents.
“Do I have to worry when I’m trying to teach kids something important – that I’m going to end up in trouble for talking about sex?”
– Lathrop High School teacher
— Cordova Jr./Sr. High School Counselor Debra Adams expressed support for the idea that sex is a “an internal sense of being male, female or something else, which may not correspond to an individual’s sex assigned at birth or sex characteristics.” She added, “The classroom should be a place of acceptance, not a gender policing state.””
— School counselor, Kristan Kelly, claimed the bill was “ridiculous.” “I am a school counselor and know the damage this bill, if passed, would cause,” she alleged, before stating the parental rights bill would take away “the only safe place for a lot of kids.”
— Kami Webster, who said she and her husband teach in Unalakleet, maintained that requiring schools to communicate to parents about a child’s gender identity would “put kids in potentially dangerous situations and gets rid of their bodily autonomy.” She added argued that “being trans or non-binary isn’t self damaging,” but that parental response to this “might be.”
— Sitka School District educator Adriana Bryan said the bill could threaten a child’s “safe place” at school and cause harm to them in a “threatening environment at home.”
— Michele Robinson, who teaches yoga, health and literature at Lathrop High School, said she opposed a provision in the bill that requires parental permission before schools can teach sexual topics to children. “We have a VERY difficult time getting a certain number of parents to respond to email or etc.,” she claimed. “There are just too many students who do not, for whatever reason, have parents who respond to letters, emails or notes sent home.” She lamented that HB 105 would prevent her from talking to kids about sex. “There are many parents who do NOT educate their kids this way,” she said. “Kids NEED this education, and we cannot allow it to be neglected.” Robinson then expressed worry that the bill might get her in trouble. “Do I have to worry when I’m trying to teach kids something important – that I’m going to end up in trouble for talking about sex?”
A Cordova teacher claimed that mandatory sex ed should be required of all students. “This shouldn’t be a decision individual parents are allowed to make,” she said.
— Third grade teacher Kathryn Ritter, who works at Sayéik Gastineau School in Juneau, said the bill would “drive a wedge between families, students and teachers.” “Students are entitled to express their identity separate from their families consent, and I believe that if parents are at odds with their children about their child’s gender identity, the child will lose trust with their teachers if the teachers are not permitted to honor the child’s request to choose their pronouns,” she wrote. Ultimately, she claimed the bill undermines a teachers ability to “mentor or guide the child” as they deem best.
— Teacher assistant Raven Amos wrote a letter arguing that the bill hinders students’ ability to “live as their authentic selves.” She said the bill harms kids by “requiring teachers to ‘out’ their students to their parents.” Amos then attacked what she coined “so-called ‘Christian parenting’” which she blasted as “indoctrination.”
— Cordova teacher Emily Moody called the bill “disgraceful.” “We don’t let parents pick and choose what classes they get to teach their kids,” she said. “Sex education is a human right.” “I do not believe as a parent that another parent has the right to deny their child access to good quality sex education,” Moody added. “We have no way of knowing what a parent’s idea of sex ed is, if they have any training, or if they were even taught sex ed themselves.” She claimed that mandatory sex ed should be required of all students. “This shouldn’t be a decision individual parents are allowed to make,” Moody concluded.
A Fairbanks educator complained that the bill would “limit the rights and protections of LGBTQ+ students, including those related to school policies and bathroom/locker access.”
— Patty Brown, who said she was a 22-year public school teacher in Alaska, said the bill would hinder schools ability to teach sex education to kids or hide their gender identity from parents. “A state law requiring a certain penalty to punish teachers and schools who honor a child’s request against the will of a parent is far too heavy handed,” Brown wrote. She added that a school is a “community for children,” and suggested that perhaps parents needed to be educated about the “spectrum of gender and sexual orientation … They are not going away.”
— Public school teacher Jennifer Marschke opposed the bill because it makes it more difficult to introduce sexual topics to children.
— Betsy Turner-Bogren, a 15-year volunteer educator in Fairbanks elementary, middle and high schools, said the bill would “limit the rights and protections of LGBTQ+ students, including those related to school policies and bathroom/locker access.” She urged lawmakers to pass requirements for “inclusive sex education” along with more programs and services for kids who self-identify as LGBTQ.
— Summer Koester, who teaches at Montessori Borealis Pre-K through 8th grade school in Juneau, opposed the bill based on her belief that “many trans children do not feel safe disclosing their true identity with their families.” She said, “I believe it should be the child’s choice to make the decision how they identify and teachers should respect that choice … this bill endangers children. Full stop.”
— Educator Denise Cotton opposed the bill as “harmful for LGBTQ+ youth.” She said it “would cause potential danger in their homes as, unfortunately, not all LGBTQ+ youth have supportive parents or guardians.”
A school nurse claimed the bill is all about “reinforcing a narrow white, conservative, Christian, heterosexual model of what is ‘normal.’”
— School psychologist Lori Crupi worried that the bill might make it harder to provide sexual education to young children – below 4th grade. “In my work in secondary schools, I am finding many students who are choosing to use they/them pronouns as they navigate peer relationships and develop as people,” she wrote. “While this didn’t happen when I was young, after meeting many students who prefer to use they/them, it doesn’t seem particularly scary.” Crupi said she worried that HB 105 would interfere with her ability to “establish trust” with students and use their “preferred nicknames.” She added, “There should be no opportunities for parents to file civil action against school personnel who refer to a student by their preferred name or pronoun.”
— Amy Gallaway, who teaches civics at West Valley High School in Fairbanks, said requiring parental permission to change a student’s pronouns would “render most classrooms a bureaucracy of permission slips.” Furthermore, she claimed HB 105 “attacks” LGBTQ kids.
— PeggyEllen Kleinleder, who worked as a school nurse, believes the bill is all about “reinforcing a narrow white, conservative, Christian, heterosexual model of what is ‘normal.’”
— Anchorage substitute teacher Kathleen Dunning called the bill a “blatant attack on LGBTQIA2S+ youth and their civil liberties,” because it would require educators to notify parents about gender identity changes in their child. She also blasted the provision requiring that bathrooms be designated by biological sex.
— High school educator LA Piper, who has worked in Anchorage, Lower Yukon, Haines and the Mat-Su, said the “last thing these teens need is another barrier placed in front of them telling them they are wrong” when it comes to what gender they identify with.
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— Educator Deborah Rinio argued against the bill based on the belief that kids should be allowed to choose their own identities. She added that the parental rights legislation would “restrict teachers ability to engage fully with the curriculum.”
— Melanie Hadaway, a former 20-year teacher who recently retired as the Director of Teaching and Learning for the Fairbanks School District, criticized the bill for requiring parental permission before schools use gender-fluid names or pronouns to address students. “And sadly, the reason student’s don’t want their parents to know is because the type of parent who would utilize the right to pursue legal action against a school district if the parent’s rights have been violated are often the parents who would react badly to their child’s use of a different pronoun,” she said. “What this language does is appease a small percentage of parents who want their personal beliefs to dictate the safety and identity of all students.” Hadaway then attacked the provision that would designate restrooms and locker rooms according to biological sex, saying the idea is “harmful” to students.
— Retired teacher Mary Burtness, of Fairbanks, ridiculed the parental rights bill for pandering to those who believe they are “morally right to push their ‘religious’ agenda on all students.” Like many other educators, she suggests that the legislation would “harm a vulnerable portion of the school population.”
29 Comments
Each of the names above should be fired immediately!!! The adviser or teacher who steps across the bold line to confuse, indoctrinate, and groom the child ought to be treated to imprisonment!
Parental Rights are a no-brainer. We need school choice now!!!!
Thank you! This list will be shared far and wide!
Now parents know who they do not want teaching their kids. Home schooling is the only way to insure kids are not being indoctrinated by the current philosophy. If this continues our country will become a police state where the government takes over our entire lives.
Education has gone so far down the sewer! Teachers now think they are gods who can direct the lives of other peoples’ children better than parents can. Gone is the goal to actually educate students in the academics, now replaced by woke social conditioning.
While this bill is noble, it is too little, too late. Parents who want their children to have traditional values MUST get their children out of these cesspools completely and immediately , and the communities who collect taxes to fund these misbegotten institutions should allow parents to use that tax money for what they believe in, not brainwashing centers which poison their children against them. That is the essence of the Democrat Party: using our own money against us.
Sounds like the groomers had a nerve hit…
Thank you Joel, Great reporting!
Parents rights are essential, this Bill (I’m sorry to say) is drastically needed. The sexual grooming needs to come to a FULL STOP!
I just keep wondering, would any of our children be trans without the interference of these people? These school officials seem to have been going behind our backs and put these ideas into our kids heads.
No. Some gender questioning is not uncommon in many growing kids up into puberty and in the past the percentage of those that become full blown dysphoria was literally a tiny percentage. I cannot recall that percent but likely could find, albeit buried intentionally within all the internet lies that are given priority by search engines. At its core the whole pushing of this agenda is really a hatred of God and His creation.
You are right Molly… These are Groomers paid to destroy children’s lives… The Colleges and Universities
are actually Grooming Teachers to Groom Children.
No wonder Alaska school children are at the bottom of the list with educators like this! OMG! How about we put all the money into home schooling and FIRE all these brain dead want to be teachers. They’re not doing the job and kids are suffering for it. go anywhere to a fast food place, Taco Bell, Arbies. McDonald’s or you pick, give then real money and see how long it take to get change if they can even make it for you. My last experience was over five minutes and I had 35 cents counted out in nickles. I ask for a dime and quarter and was told I was robbing the place. shortly before another employee called the cops the manager came over and straightened it out. I guess I should of been happy with my 7 nickles. I haven’t been back their! We’d be better off with home school and wouldn’t have to worry about our kids being exposed to this smut/filth. The one person that said it’s white heterosexual against LGBTQ+ is totally correct. It’s not that we’re unexceptional it’s were sick of it being cramed down our throats. If you want to do that, go do it, but don’t flaunt it in my face. As for the kids, how many court cases has there been in Alaska, and a registry for them about school teachers and or others that have possessed child phonograph? I say here is another bunch or teachers that qualify to join those in prison!
What’s wrong with these women?
Bet most are either unmarried, never had children, or if they do, they probably attended a very liberal college for indoctrination to the NewWorld order. As an educator they think they are empowered to speak as if they were the advocate for each child. They still are not the parent!!
I bet all those teachers were rallied within their hallowed halls, given leave time, and maybe even expenses paid to venture to Juneau to bolster the lies. Cordova is an easy flight to Juneau. They are all deluded and have fallen for the mob mentality dysphoria cult at its core hates kids, hates all that is good, or true, or wholesome, as it is authored by the father of lies, satan. The misguided confused compassion of these educators is no compassion at all as true compassion is not built on lies but truth. Truth can be painful and anymore in our new world culture, pain must be avoided and enabling seems to reign. What a tragedy. Likely most of these people actually believe they are helping. Instead they are only paving the way for a life of more confusion and darkness for these kids.
Good reporting Joel.
Spread these names wide and far. Seek to stop them from influencing children, as they all are a clear and present danger to kids.
A pox on every one of these names.
Thank you Joel for the information. Has anyone seen the Educators in Juneau showing their middle finger for the camera while testifying (education money at work)
I SURE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHEN THERE WILL BE MORE TESTIMONY ON HB105
What is all this infatuation with sex and sexual topics in our public schools? Aren’t these teachers hired and paid to teach our kids how to read, write, learn their math and science? Alaska students are at the bottom in US national test scores, but we are paying big money to get our kids educated about sex? A sad, ridiculous situation. Parents need to get involved and demand that teachers spend their time doing some real teaching as they were hired to do. We must begin standing up for our kids. They are the victims in this whole mess.
The fact that this even has to be put into a bill makes me not trust public education which is why I don’t send my 3 kids to public school.
Astounding. In the 1960’s, some 300 of my elementary school peers and I had special classes in 5th and 6th grade that pre-empted our regular classes. ooh, very mysterious. These were images, charts, and kindly-matter-of-fact explanations on the biology of our bodies as we would grow into teenagers and then men and women. What we did with that information was our own, as another version was presented in 9th grade. The mechanics were left out, and our innocence jntact, as it was plainly stated that we would all learn each stage in due time as our bodies, minds, and knowledge grew. Somehow, we all made it through, as I joined those same kids in Jr High and Senior High. We went off to college or had families, or started businesses. Only one boy were we all aware of, that suffered from bullying, and that was because he was fat.
What we are seeing now, is that this topic is covered stupidly. Apparently because we have “progressed”.
Here’s an educator from way back when that did not keep his hands to himself apparently. Just saw this story.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/03/sex-abuse-charges-alaska-former-attorney-general-clyde-ed-sniffen-sex-abuse-charges-dropped-judge-peter-ramgren/
Foh This AG was dunleavy’s second appointment! His first was the AG Kevin Clarkson, another perverse individual who spent all day sexting a subordinate! Dunleavy kept it hidden for months!!! Not fired, and Sniffen not prosecuted!!! I used to work in the prison system in this state and I know many inmates that are pissed off about the judicial tier system!!!
Interesting that a judge is still trying to hold President Trump accountable for something that is out of the scope of the statute of limitations, but this creep had been excused. Too bad that these creeps always get rewarded for their bad behavior.
These teachers are right. Parents don’t have a clue what the children know. I knew all about sex, gays, and trans. It was in the books we passed around in 6th and 7th grade. Now, many years later, grandson has 2 moms. It’s a perfectly normal family. What will the teachers do when he says he has 2 moms?
To Editor at Fairbanks Daily News Miner: April 6, 2023 Please get behind Governor Dunleavy’s HB 105, Parental Rights Bill now. Send your email to hedc@akleg.gov in support of Parental Rights bill HB 105 ASAP. With the aggressive LGBTQ and CRT propaganda being pushed on our children, at the expense of Classical Curriculum, the scholastic results for Alaskan children can only remain in the sewer. It will take a strong parental involvement to change this disturbing scholastic trend. Shield our students and help our Alaskan parents! (Note: Please tell 10 others.)
All sex education should be banned in schools.
They want to “ mentor and guide” the children? How about just teaching them how to read, write, and do math? These teachers have the same attitude of the school administrators in Virginia had- just before parents took action! We’ll teacher your kids whatever we want, you just sit back and shut up. They lost their governor (mcauliffe) on that one. I know there are good, caring teachers in Alaska but these “ain’t” them. They’re egos and self importance astound me. But truthfully, if we’d just give them more money everything would be better, right?
I grieve for Anchorage, the place where I grew up but I’m afraid it’s a lost cause. Voter apathy on the part of sane, normal people is rampant. You get what you allow.
Well said Craig. I don’t know one person that grew up in anchorage that doesn’t acknowledge that we had such a great place to grow up. Oh how I wish for those innocent, carefree days when kids weren’t exploited
Sex education is a parents responsibility.