{"id":1446955,"date":"2022-04-20T07:14:39","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T11:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1446955"},"modified":"2022-04-20T07:14:48","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T11:14:48","slug":"parents-say-massachusetts-middle-school-carried-out-secret-gender-transitions-on-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/parents-say-massachusetts-middle-school-carried-out-secret-gender-transitions-on-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents Say Massachusetts Middle School Carried Out Secret Gender Transitions on Children"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fparents-say-massachusetts-middle-school-carried-out-secret-gender-transitions-on-children%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1446955&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<aside id=\"aside1\" class=\"left\">\n<\/aside>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Parents in Massachusetts are suing their kids&#8217; school alleging that teachers and staff encouraged students to change their pronouns and names without parents\u2019 knowledge or consent.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.mad.243970\/gov.uscourts.mad.243970.1.0.pdf\">lawsuit<\/a>, parents claim that Ludlow Public Schools had a \u201cprotocol and practice of concealing from parents information related to their children\u2019s gender identity\u201d in middle school.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201c[Efforts] to affirm a discordant student gender identity at school violates parents\u2019 fundamental rights under the United States and Massachusetts constitutions and violates children\u2019s reciprocal rights to the care and custody of their parents, familial privacy, and integrity,\u201d the lawsuit reads. It was filed in a Massachusetts federal district court.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In the lawsuit, parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri claim that a teacher at the school shared concerns that their 11-year-old daughter, \u201cB.F.,\u201d was struggling with self-image and had low self-esteem. Silvestri was &#8220;grateful&#8221; the teacher had contacted her. The parents then sent an email to the school asking employees to refrain from private conversations with their daughter and explaining they would get her the help she needs. The parents believe the school disregarded their instructions.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In the lawsuit, Foote and Silverstri claim that their daughter \u201cchanged her preferred name at least twice since December 2020 without Plaintiff\u2019s knowledge or consent, and to this date they [school staff] continue to address B.F. by whatever iteration of her name she has indicated she prefers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In addition, in 2019, B.F. was given a classroom assignment where students were asked to create videos including their gender and preferred pronouns. Allegedly, parents were not informed of the assignment and did not know who was allowed to view the videos.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cOn or about September 2019, Defendant Jordan Funke instructed incoming sixth grade students at Baird Middle School to create videos and to include in the videos their gender identity and preferred pronouns. Plaintiffs Foote\u2019s and Silvestri\u2019s 11-year-old daughter, B.F. was among the students given that assignment. The videos of their children were created without the parents\u2019 knowledge or consent and it remains unknown how these videos were used or who was allowed to view them,\u201d the lawsuit noted.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In 2021, B.F. sent an email to her teachers and other school staff stating that she was \u201cgenderqueer\u201d and listed her preferred pronouns, which included \u201che\/him,\u201d and a new preferred name. The teacher from the school who previously called Silvestri over B.F.&#8217;s mental health allegedly sent a copy of the email to both her parents and was placed on administrative leave shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Another set of parents, Jonathan Feliciano and Sandra Salmeron, who also joined the lawsuit, claim that they \u201care deliberately hindered from ascertaining whether their children are being secretly counseled about and affirmed in discordant gender identities without their knowledge or consent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The parents in the lawsuit added that then-superintendent of the school, Todd Gazda, \u201cstated publicly, without refutation from the School Committee, that parents\u2019 concerns amounted to \u2018intolerance of LGBT people thinly veiled\u2019 behind a \u2018camouflage of parental rights.\u2019 Defendant Gazda further stated that schools, not homes, are the true \u2018safe space\u2019 for children because schools supply \u2018caring adults\u2019 where students can discuss problems and find support for their \u2018true identities,\u2019 implying that children do not receive such care from their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The lawsuit was prepared and filed on behalf of two organizations, the Child and Parental Rights Campaign and the Massachusetts Family Institute.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Vernadettte Broyles, president and general counsel of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation that \u201cschool officials are making decisions about the lives of children that they are not qualified or authorized to make and doing it without telling, and often deceiving, parents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parents in Massachusetts are suing their kids&#8217; school alleging that teachers and staff encouraged students to change their pronouns and names without parents\u2019 knowledge or consent.According to the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}