The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) is a national accreditation association for private schools. Many private schools, both sectarian and non-sectarian, are members. Unfortunately, it seems the NAIS has joined a growing list of schools, school districts, and professional education associations that endorse and enforce indoctrinating children on LGBT and gender ideology, and keeping parents in the dark regarding their children’s well-being and punishing parents for speaking up critically.

Dr. William Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, sent a letter to Donna Orem, president of NAIS, asking her to confirm a report by Breitbart that claims that, “Private schools across the country are training teachers to expose kids as young as four years old to sexually explicit content — in secrecy and without parents’ knowledge — directed by the National Association Independent Schools (NAIS) as part of a ‘queer-inclusive’ curriculum.” Ms. Orem did not respond to Dr. Donahue’s letter, so Donahue went public with the story on the Catholic League website.

Breitbart reports that a 2020 training session for teachers included a lecturer explaining: “Starting in Pre-K we talk about their bodies, the parts that they were born with, about penises and vaginas and whether they make somebody a boy or girl. But also their feelings, what do they feel like inside, do they feel like a boy or a girl? What does their head say? Do their heart and their body match up,” the lecturer explains. In the same lecture, warns about “Puritan Speak,” which are statements or questions parents might use or raise to communicate their concerns about the curriculum. “Puritan Speak” includes the following statements or questions:

• That’s my job.
• They’re just not “ready.”
• That’s too much too soon
• They’re too young to know that.
• Won’t they lose their innocence?
• But, what if my child isn’t ready?
• But what if they tell other children?
• Don’t you have to wait until they ask?
• But what if they keep on asking questions?
• You’re just trying to put ideas in their heads!

According to Breitbart, NAIS schools are even including prohibitions against parents protesting or disagreeing too strongly with school policy or curricula, with their child’s expulsion held over the parent’s heads if they refuse to comply. Enrollment contracts even include provisions the parents are required to sign off on that states that their approval is not needed to begin the process of social transitioning for their child. One such enrollment contract states: “The School shall accept the gender identity that each student asserts. There is no medical or mental health diagnosis or treatment threshold that students must meet in order to have their gender identity recognized and respected. … Students ready to socially transition may initiate a process to change their name, pronoun, attire, and access to preferred activities and facilities. … The School will work with the parent/guardians of a student whenever possible and appropriate, but I/we understand and agree that parent/guardian approval will not be a prerequisite for respecting a student’s gender identity.”

It gets worse, including posters of whales with names like “pansexuwhale,” “bisexuwhale,” and “asexuwhale” intended to introduce very young children to the concepts of pansexuality, bisexuality and asexuality, and posters of deer with names like “transgendeer” and “gendeerfluid.” Libraries include access by students to the book “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe with illustrations of boys engaging in oral sex. No, I’m not kidding.

When did schools and professional educators start thinking of themselves as the rightful arbiters of what is best for the children in their schools, even outside the boundaries of academics? When did they start thinking of parents as obstacles to a child’s well-being? More importantly: Why did schools start thinking this way? Was there are particular generation of parents that proved so abusive, so hostile, so oppositional to their children that schools felt the need to move in and supplant these horrible parents? Or was it simply that schools assumed for themselves the position of primary caretakers of children because they failed so miserably in preparing children academically that they adopted a new mission, that of indoctrinating children with a political and social agenda?

Whatever the reasons for the shift in our schools from an academic mission to a political/social mission, it needs to be opposed and stopped, and the only people in a position to do that are parents. Parents need to step up and demand that schools stop attempting to supplant them and stop focusing on politics and social indoctrination and get back to academics. The schools are failing our children, and parents cannot simply sit back and allow that to happen. Parents have been silent for too long, and politicians and professional educators have demanded their silence for too long. The result of that silence has been the dismal failure of our schools to prepare children academically. Now, silence will result in our children growing up confusing, depressed, suicidal, and utterly at the mercy of their feelings and of social, medical, and sexual predators eager to manipulate and exploit them.

Parents are the primary educators of their children. Parents have first responsibility in protecting the well-being of their children. Any school that attempts to supplant parents, outside of clear evidence of abuse, is an enemy to parents, not a partner. It is no surprise that the school choice and homeschooling movements have exploded in recent years, especially in the context of the pandemic. Parents who care about their children are not about to hand them over to others who desire to experiment with them in order to prove to themselves and other social indoctrinators their woke credentials.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all.