Church Persecuted March 26, 2023
When one looks at the curriculum or reviews some of the educational materials available for public review for the Fairfax County Public Schools, the volume of material may appear overwhelming, but once one delves into the details, a different view surfaces. The Family Life Education (FLE) program has been in place for at least 30 years. In the early days, there was very little offensive materials in the primary grades, but over the years, the program crept into lower and lower grades with the following examples:
Kindergarten and first grade: Students are asked to examine different kinds of families to include two-parent (mother and father, two mothers, two fathers) and single-parent families, adoptive families, foster families, families with stepparents, and blended families.
Fifth grade: Students in the human growth and development course are introduced to the terms “sex assigned at birth” and “gender identity” contending that biological sex is subjective and subject to change. This is repeated during a class on the reproductive system
Seventh grade: Students are provided definitions of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender. They are taught that their biological sex might not align with their personal perception of gender and that male or female sex “assigned at birth” is arbitrary and can change. Students are taught that not affirming another’s sexual orientation or perceived gender identity is to display a negative bias.
These and a complete review of the Family Life Education curriculum for 2022-23 can be found at parentandchild.org.
Church Persecuted March 19, 2023
St. Raymond’s has a robust program to convince families to move their children out of the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and into Catholic schools. While the “hot button” topics include the family life education program, equity, diversity and inclusion, and critical race theory, the school system’s focus on these topics sometimes requires other basic skills to slide by the wayside.
Cursive is no longer taught in the school system. Spelling is no longer important according to one FCPS teacher. One parent complained to the teacher when a child came home with misspelled words all over the page. The child said, “We don’t get deductions on papers for misspelled words.” The parent met with the teacher who said, “We are more concerned about content and context.” The context of the comments was that this same parent saw the beautiful cursive writing of a Catholic school student and perfectly spelled words on a paper from a first grader in Catholic school. So there are students who are still learning to spell and use words correctly in sentences!
The FCPS parent, though, told the teacher that “My standards are that my children learn how to correctly spell and use words in sentences and I’ll teach them cursive myself.” After all, parents are responsible for the education of their children and not the state. The state (and the Church) has a responsibility to support the parents in that role. It’s time that parents wrest the schools’ leadership away from the teachers union and the school board and take control. One way to do that is to elect school board members (this November) who put the parents first and not the interests of teachers/administrators/unions.