Scottsdale parents have uncovered and have started to document examples of classroom materials and assignments that appear to push gender ideology throughout the Scottsdale Unified School District.
Scottsdale Unites for Educational Integrity, a grassroots organization calling for transparency in education, has a “Parent Discoveries” page on its website, where it posts specific instances of gender ideology parents have found in schools in the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD).
In a parent-discovered pronoun survey used at Chaparral High School, students are asked what pronouns they use, such as “She/Her, He/Him, They/Them or Other.” The survey potentially withholds pronoun information from parents and questions students about how they would like their “preferred name and pronouns” used “in front of other adults including your parents?”
Similarly, a parent found a pronoun survey used at Saguaro High School. The survey asks students, “What do you prefer to be called? Does your family know about your preferred name[?] What are your preferred pronouns? Does your family know about your preferred pronouns?”
Parents also obtained a confidential “Gender Support Plan.” SUSD has reportedly lacked transparency about the plan, which aims to establish “shared understandings about the ways in which the student’s authentic gender will be accounted for and supported at school.” Although the document states it should be completed by “[s]chool staff, caregivers, and the student,” the plan asks about the caregiver’s level of awareness and “support,” and if there is little support from the parent or guardian, “what considerations must be accounted for in implementing this plan?”
Calling out the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) in a post on Twitter (X), Scottsdale Unites says, “School counselors are trained to affirm gender dysphoria…[t]hey prioritize children’s opinions over parents’ wishes.” The ASCA describes the school counselor’s role as recognizing that “the responsibility for determining a student’s gender identity rests with the student rather than outside confirmation from medical practitioners, mental health professionals or documentation of legal changes.”
The ASCA obtains advice for counselors from the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the LBGTQ advocate group GLSEN. Regarding student records, “Schools should make every effort to use students’ chosen/affirmed names on student records, even if a legal name change has not been made. This includes making changes in the school’s student information system, so the affirmed name is the one that appears on most printed unofficial materials…while the legal name is kept in a segregated, confidential file. If students have not disclosed their gender identity to a parent or guardian and as a result their name and/or gender marker cannot be changed on their student records, their chosen/affirmed name should be noted as a “preferred name” in the system͘. This affirmed name should be used by staff and peers, according to the transgender or nonbinary student’s wishes…(GLSEN & NCTE, 2020).”
In an article by the Arizona Daily Independent, an email shows Chaparral High School social worker Leah Stegman suggesting ways staff can be more “inclusive,” such as asking students about their preferred name and pronouns when “taking attendance” and providing a “Google Form asking for preferred name and pronouns.” If students request to change the name on their ID, “we can do that,” she says.
Scottsdale Unites’ parent discoveries include a message from January 24, 2023, sent by a Chaparral High School student to Scottsdale Unified School District Superintendent Scott Menzel on the district’s “Let’s Talk” communication platform. “I have to voice my opinion, even though it may not matter to you,” the student said, noting that for many years, teachers have asked, “what pronouns I prefer” and “what name I would like to be called.” After commenting that the percentage of students with “gender identity issues” at Chaparral High School is low, the student asked, “Why are most of our teachers required to ask this when this is such a small amount of students? Can you ask our teachers to stop doing this?”
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Debra McClure is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Debra on X / Twitter.
Photo “High School Classroom” by Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages CCNC2.0
