Unhappy Ellsworth Community School District parents spoke out at Monday night’s school board meeting about a district teacher showing “The Most Dangerous Year,” a documentary about trans-genderism, to seventh graders during a Readings Foundations class on March 25.

Debate also arose between parents and school board members about the time limit allotted each speaker, when one speaker did not get to finish his speech.

C3 Church Pastor Matt Anderson said as a parent and faith leader, he was alarmed and shocked that the video was shown. He commended the district on its quick response to parent concern.

“As a pastor, I need to make my concern public,” Anderson said.

He noted the film’s age 18+ disclaimer and asked the district to “not take a position of indoctrination.”

The documentary follows as Washington state lawmakers, activists and parents crusade to protect the civil rights of transgender children. 2016 Parent Thia Rewolinksi read a letter on behalf of her friend, Rebecca Meyers’, “I think some of the content being taught in sixth grade health is not at all health-related, instead pushing an agenda around same-sex marriage and in seventh grade, showing ‘The Most Dangerous Year’ in class without parents’ consent is wrong and very concerning,” the letter said.

Meyers prefers to watch films first before her children view them.

“At the very least there should be an opt out for these sensitive topics,” Rewolinksi read. “Perhaps the school should focus more on how Johnny reads and writes and less on what he knows about transgender issues.”

Parent Nehemiah Huppert spoke next, praising the district for great teachers, coaches and memories. However, some topics are not wellreceived.

“There is also a strong sense that our children are being presented with ideologies and progressive or political agendas that cannot and should not be part of the public school curriculum. Particularly at this age,” Huppert said. “This is appalling to me that our school would consider presenting this topic and is brazen enough to put this before our children and encourage them to discuss it, especially without parental permission or notification.”

He branched into different topics that he finds disturbing.

“Another concern of mine is the collection of readings or books known as the LGTBQ library offered to children on our school computers,” Huppert said. “I think this is also an ideological agenda item and clearly not within the academic realm of public education which is what the majority of most parents expect from our schools.”

He spoke against a Black Lives Matter poster being exhibited in the school in “a positive way.”

“Black Lives Matter, which in name alone sounds good, because we all know our lives matter regardless of color, but again this is an ideological group with a political agenda,” Huppert said. “BLM is led by Patrice Cullors, a trained Marxist. Marxism argues for overthrow of capitalism in favor of communism. Part of the agenda of BLM is to disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family.”

In the middle of Huppert explaining critical race theory, the three-minute bell dinged and Cain offered to take the speech and put it in the official record.

Parent Donald Eaves III, who was slated to speak next on a separate issue, offered to share his time.

“Actually, rather than sharing time, it is our policy three minutes per speaker,” Board President Doug Peterson said.

He said Huppert had already spoken longer than three minutes, and if they let him go longer, they’ll have to do it for everyone going forward.

“I think it’s the important that parents can know what is going on in the school system and they’re not going to know because you’re silencing me right now,” Huppert said.

Peterson offered to take the statement in writing, and encouraged Huppert to write a letter to the editor in The Journal.

“Doug is right,” Cain said. “It’s a situation where public comment, if you set a time limit which most do, then you have to be equal in that. You can’t deny anybody less than that and you can’t provide more.”

Cain then addressed plans going forward, which is making sure curriculum and content is age appropriate.

“In any district you’re going to have controversial topics that are spoken about in public education,” Cain said. “That is part of what you will have. But any time that something is seen as a controversial topic, we want to be able to provide parents, number one, the idea that the it is age appropriate, that the lesson plan is age appropriate, that the topic is age appropriate, but also the idea that parents have the ability to opt out of that topic and so that is something that was not done in this situation. We will grow from it. We will be looking at it more and more and more.

He said equity is a major topic in the world today and that the public can trust the district when it comes to educating students.

“We want you to trust us. We are not attempting to indoctrinate people and I believe thoroughly our staff is not in that situation, as a superintendent, attempting to indoctrinate students,” Cain said. “We acknowledge that it was a video that was not age appropriate and parents should have had the opportunity to opt out, if that topic was addressed at all in that setting. Again, we will be moving forward from here and making changes and looking for every way we can possibly make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

At the end of the meeting, Eaves questioned the board policy on public comment time allotment, saying that Huppert technically should have been allowed more time if he is speaking on behalf of a group. Peterson said that when Huppert signed up to speak, he did not indicate he was speaking on behalf of a group.

The school board policy can be found at www.ellsworth.k12.wi.us under the school board tab.

Next week’s Journal will contain more information from the April 12 meeting.