California school district offers extensive resources promoting LGBT ideology to students, teachers

Haywood Unified School District allegedly rejected a Bible club last year

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, January 02, 2024

A school district in California is promoting resources to students and teachers that promote LGBT ideology, including transgender identity and puberty-blocking drugs to young students.

Resources promoted by the "Safe and Inclusive Schools Program" (SISP) at the Haywood Unified School District (HUSD) in the Bay Area offers lesson plans and lists of resources that push LGBT ideology on students as young as transitional kindergarten, as first reported by The Daily Wire.

The district serves more than 19,000 students and encompasses 19 elementary schools, five middle schools, three high schools, an alternative high school, an adult education center, and a child care center for preschoolers, according to its website.

The Christian Post has reached out to HUSD for comment and will update this piece if a response is received.

One SISP document last updated in October offers resources intended to foster an initiative throughout the school year to promote "LGBTQIA+ inclusive elementary schools."

Among the "suggested resources and ideas that can be mixed and matched to build school communities that are more aware and supportive of the experiences of LGBTQIA+ youth, families and staff members," the document encourages allies to know and follow all state laws and district policies protecting "LGBTQIA+ and gender expansive youth."

Allies are also encouraged to decorate classrooms with LGBT posters, celebrate LGBT history, promote so-called transgender awareness month" in November, and celebrate pride month in June, among other things.

One resource listed in the document includes the HUSD Safe and Inclusive Schools Program Elementary Book Box, which is placed at elementary schools and stocked with "many LGBTQIA+ texts" for teachers to check out and read aloud to children.

The books "include a range of themes including different family structures like two moms or two dads" and "gender identity and expression," according to the document. The books newly listed for 2024 include titles for young children that address gender fluidity and feature "transmasculine" characters.

SISP at HUSD also offers film suggestions "that align with anti-bullying and LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum," according to another document.

One of the films recommended for students in the fifth grade and up is "I’m Just Anneke," which is about a biological girl who goes on puberty-blocking drugs because she is "not sure if she wants to be a girl, a boy, or something in-between when she grows up," according to a synopsis.

"Gender Matters," a series of six short films that "delve into the lives of transgender [and] gender expansive young adults," is another listed film recommended for students in the sixth grade and up.

"Straightlaced—How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up," which is recommended for eighth grade and up, features "stories [that] reflect a diversity of experiences, demonstrating how gender role expectations and homophobia are interwoven, and illustrating the different ways these expectations connect with culture, race and class," according to a synopsis.

In another expansive document regarding "LGBTQIA+, Gender, & Pride in HUSD," the district's SISP provides educators with more than 90 resources for pride month that promote LGBT ideology, such as "Defining LGBTQ+ Words for Elementary Students," "Lesson Plans to Create Gender Expansive Classrooms," and book recommendations to help boys develop "non-toxic masculinity."

For transgender awareness month, another SISP document advises school staff to "protect a trans/nonbinary youth’s confidential identity information" even from parents and caregivers, citing state law and district policy. According to its website, HUSD allows students to change their name and pronouns without parental knowledge.

Resources listed on the transgender awareness document at the elementary level include a children's book about gender expression and pronouns, as well as a video by Jazz Jennings, who began to identify as trans at age 4, with the encouragement of his mother.

According to The Daily Wire, HUSD has also forked over tens of thousands of dollars to develop curricula that promote Critical Race Theory. In 2021, the district spent $40 million making an "ethnic studies" curriculum steeped in CRT mandatory for high school students, according to The Daily Mail.

Though it has apparently allocated extensive resources to promoting left-wing initiatives, HUSD also made headlines last fall for allegedly rejecting multiple requests from Child Evangelism Fellowship to let one of its Good News Club chapters meet at Fairview Elementary School.

Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group, sent a letter to HUSD Superintendent Jason Reimann on Aug. 21 last year demanding that the school district "immediately approve CEF’s renewed facilities use request to hold a Good News Club after school on campus at Fairview Elementary School," and noted that such Bible-based clubs had been allowed at the school in the past.