Nice to know, but it's none of the state's business.
Breaking: Participate in our Connecticut Opt-Out Campaign to get your kids out of cringy school surveys. AND plan to attend our September 24, 2022 Let Kids Be Kids Conference in Hartford with national parental-rights advocate, Jennifer McWilliams and Courage Is A Habit!
The state of Connecticut, through its revised 2021 School Health Survey (based on the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Study) asked random high schoolers, including children “12 or younger” whether others would describe them as “very feminine, mostly feminine, somewhat feminine, equally feminine and masculine, somewhat masculine, mostly masculine, very masculine.” Why and to what end? To what end does it serve our state to plumb the depths of teenage angst over what other teens think?
What would it matter if 15% of students believe others think they are “mostly feminine” vs. say, 25% who consider themselves “somewhat feminine”? There is no “I don’t know” or “unsure” option – our teens must put a stake in ground as to what others think about their gender “fluidity”. Again, to what end can this possibly serve in educating our students? You’d think we weren’t coming out of a pandemic where grades and academics have suffered.
This is Grooming 101 for our Connecticut teenagers by smiling adults who wish to “normalize” gender fluidity and “questioning”. More about that in the future, but for now I want Connecticut parents to consider participating in our new limited-time initiative to opt-out of all student surveys. Pay attention to your e-mails and also consider joining us at our Social Emotional Learning Conference on September 24, 2022 featuring national speaker and children’s rights advocate, Jennifer McWilliams and Courage is a Habit.
Back to this awful survey. State officials want your children to confide to school administrators if you’ve ever . . ever – during their WHOLE LIFE, “sworn” at your child. Yes, this is an actual question (Q21, 2021). Have you ever, in your teen’s mind . . put them “down” – please, do tell. How about delivering an insult – the State of Connecticut wants to know even though they promise not to “report” you.
School administrators promise not to “report” despite being mandated reporters and gathering personally-identifiable information. They promise not to tell anyone if you, as a parent, have ever “physically hurt” your child “in any way”. This is sad, but it also seems absurd in the sheer audacity to ask these intrusive and personal questions. All with the shallow promise to your children they won’t tell anyone. As a parent, nobody should have a right to gather personal information from your child about your family, about your child’s sexual behavior, sexual identification, potential criminal activity and more in a school setting without your consent. YOU don’t give up your right to raise your children, you don’t lose your right to family privacy, just because you send them to public school. (But you can OPT-OUT right now by submitting an opt-out form to your school administrators today.)
These questions are bad enough, but the survey, which requires disclosure of personally identifiable information, also asks students to admit to illegal activities such as participating in illegal drug transactions on school property (Q57, 2021), drinking alcohol while driving (Q10, 2021), carrying a weapon on school property (Q12, 2021), buying tobacco (Q35, 2021) and more.
Again, you can strongly believe that knowing the answers to these questions is reasonable and good, but the “goodness” of knowing this information is not absolute. This survey, and more like them, are happening without explicit parental consent or knowledge. This is data mining for school administrators and their well-heeled consultants to sort and categorize teenagers, to provide justification for future mental-health funding (including “comprehensive sex education”), a bit of grooming and a lot of “normalizing” behavior that many parents would find offensive.