Sex Education at HSE Schools
This article was written by Fishers One. Watch a video clip from Fox 59 aired on October 28, 2021 on this topic down below!
Parents are alarmed over incidences of sexualization of children at HSE Schools. Students as young as fifth grade reported feeling uncomfortable when being asked their preferred pronouns or discussions on sexuality/orientation in class introductions. Other parents are outraged with recent findings of obscene and inappropriate books with descriptive sexual scenes in our school libraries.
Also, in the summer of 2021, parents were angered with news of former HSE Math teacher, Mr. Gray, being charged with child molesting, fondling or touching with a child under 14. The allegation stems from the 2017-2018 school year and involves sexual misconduct approximately ten times of a 6th grade student at Fall Creek Intermediate.
Mr. Gray was hired by the district in 2007. He was a teacher at FCI for 10 years, in addition to coaching girls cross country, track, and basketball. According to news reports, the parent alleges the district failed to address the situation with her child. Not long after the allegations, Mr. Gray transferred to Riverside in 2018. Many parents question if HSE transferred Mr. Gray in efforts to cover up the alleged misconduct.
On various social media pages, some parents have addressed concerns with feeling ignored when reporting allegations in recent years. One parent shared email documentation of asking to have their student removed from a classroom, but the district failed to grant the request. Additionally, the recent school year brought up many concerns of the sexualization of HSE’s children through the push of gender identity posters, identity pronouns, classroom discussions on sexuality, and classroom book readings that many parents say violate their family values and religious beliefs.
In the Spring of 2021, a public Facebook Live hosted by HSE Schools to support LGBQT students had some concerned over comments like “Children as young as fourth grade are already experimenting with anal sex.” The online event also suggested the idea that educators are attempting to rewire children’s brains by using gender neutral language in the classroom.
In response to increased concern over the sexualization of students at HSE, Fishers One began investigating the sexual education program at HSE Schools.
Until 2015, HSE Schools hired an independent organization called Creating Positive Relationships (CPR) to teach students sexual education. However, in recent years HSE Schools decided CPR instructors would no longer teach at their schools. Therefore, the district’s children no longer have outsourced sexual education specialists teaching Sex Ed. Sexual education is now taught by the student’s health or physical education teachers. For HSE sixth grade students, HSE has purchased the CPR curriculum for HSE teachers to use. All other grades have curriculum other than CPR.
We reached out to CPR to look into their program. They said the mission of Creating Positive Relationships (CPR) is to educate young people on making healthy decisions regarding sexual activity and relationships to equip young people with the knowledge, ability, and desire to have healthy relationships while promoting both abstinence and sexual risk avoidance.
Their core message is postponing sexual activity until marriage is the healthiest choice. Young people are encouraged to consider the physical, mental, emotional and social aspects of being sexually involved and the significant freedoms and benefits associated with delaying sexual activity.
CPR claims they provide young people with practical strategies for goal-setting, decision-making, maintaining self-control, respecting one’s self and others, planning for dating, setting safe limits for physical affection, and resisting peer influence. They believe parents are a significant factor in a child’s decision on whether or not to become sexually active, therefore, they are committed to educating, empowering and involving parents/guardians through training, webinars, online resources, and educational materials. They claim while they educate that abstinence is the safest choice, they teach students that if they become sexually active, there are precautions to take to do so more safely.
An anonymous source notified Fishers One that some educators at Fishers High School felt the CPR message was not inclusive and led the charge to remove CPR from HSE Schools. While we could not confirm this allegation with HSE Schools, this tip encouraged Fishers One to look into the reason to remove qualified sexual education specialists from the district and push the curriculum into the health and wellness courses.
Fishers One sat down with former HSE School Board member Sylvia Shepler. She examined several years of HSE School Board minutes to accurately recall the history of the decision to remove CPR from HSE Schools. In 2013, Assistant Principal Dr. Niedermeyer and HSE staff members suggested the goal to have HSE teachers teach the health/wellness standards. HSE teachers would not use the curriculum developed by CPR. Dr. Niedermeyer did recommend to the board, however, that the CPR curriculum would continue in sixth grade, under the instruction of HSE teachers. For grades 7-12, HSE teachers would follow state standards and select curriculum that was not from CPR.
Former School Board members Diane Eaton and Sylvia Shepler remember the discussion regarding removing CPR at a HSE School Board meeting. Several students testified to the board how they believed it was important to keep CPR in the district. However, some teachers testified against CPR in the schools. They wanted to teach the sexual education course during health and wellness courses. They testified since they had education degrees they were more qualified than the sexual education specialists.
Soon after this proposal, the decision was made to remove CPR from the school budget for free/reduced students. This decision took funding out of the budget for CPR. Sexual education would be placed into the wellness/health classrooms.
Shepler voted against removing CPR from HSE Schools. She expressed her concern over being able to control such an important message when it was placed into the hands of many different teachers in the district, some of which might have varying views of sexuality. Shepler felt sexual education was an important topic that needed to be taught only by a professional organization like Creating Positive Relationships.
Fishers One filed a FOIA request to review the health and wellness curriculum for grades 7-12. We were pleased to find the text books we reviewed did not alert any serious red flags. We did notice there was not any additional resources like online materials provided.
One item the reviewers did notice, however, was several Scholastic magazines targeted towards the junior high students involved LGBQT articles that might go against some students’ religious beliefs. These articles spoke about creating GSA Clubs (Gay Straight Alliance), same-sex dating relationships, BLM, meditation, and using gender-neutral language. Additionally, several questions we asked in the FOIA request came back with answers that contradicted what we have been hearing from parents.
So, what is the law in Indiana regarding sexual education? In the state of Indiana, sexual education in public schools is actually not mandated to be taught at all. However, what is mandated is that sexual education curriculum must stress abstinence. Additionally, laws enforce teachers in Indiana’s public schools to require permission from parents before instructing their children on sex.
So, is this law being followed within HSE Schools now that the responsibility is no longer being outsourced to an organization like CPR who are experts on Indiana laws on sexual education?
One anonymous HSE teacher is concerned that the lines have become blurred with keeping sexual topics within the confines of the sexual education courses. “What I am seeing in my building, is some teachers are infusing some sexuality topics into their classroom through SEL (Social Emotional Learning). While I think SEL is really good if teachers stick to the basic curriculum, I am finding that a few of my friends are not doing that. I know of one teacher who decided to introduce some topics into their SEL lesson that I felt many parents wouldn’t be happy about. So, I think it is better to just leave sex ed to the experts.”
Fishers One has received time-stamped email documentation of correspondence between HSE faculty regarding one student’s change of name and pronouns and gender identity. This email suggested a plan to keep the information away from the parents. This is a dangerous concern and contrary to the teachings of Creating Positive Relationships. CPR teaches that no adult should ever have you keep a secret. They teach secrets are part of abusive relationships and actually gives the abuser power.
Obstruction of parental rights and sexualization of children is a growing concern to not only HSE families, but parents all around Indiana. In fact, a growing Facebook group called “Purple for Parents Indiana” has over 5,800 individuals concerned about the sexualization of children within school districts.
Founder Jennifer McWilliams says, “Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is the vehicle for Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) and it is incredibly dangerous. A school should never allow a subject like sex education be taught from the viewpoint of the teacher because the spectrum of what parents see as acceptable varies so significantly. We are part of a national coalition that works to protect children’s health. Once schools transform the culture with progressive ideology, like HSE, they bring in CSE. CSE is not a sex education class, it is a curriculum integrated into everyday life for the children. CSE is based on the fraudulent data that children are sexual from birth and they have sexual rights. Parents must resist this completely.“
In response to news of the charges against HSE Math teacher Mr. Gray, HSE did send out a Skylert with the following message: “We believe strongly in student safety, including investigating any allegations of wrongdoing perpetrated against students. If you have any suspicions of inappropriate activity related to this case, please contact the Fishers Police Department.
We also would ask that if you ever have any suspicions of similar activities at any time, please reach out immediately to your child’s teacher, school principal, counselor or district administrator. We also have a mobile reporting app, HSE Report It!, that allows anyone to provide anonymous information about concerns for their own safety or the safety of others.”
Fishers One will continue to look into the sexual education of HSE Students and communicate concerns with administrators to strengthen transparency and the relationship between educators and parents.