School Response

They are “scared” by our petition and they hope no students ever see it. Our petition and efforts would be very hurtful to LGBTQ students who already feel bullied. They hinted that our efforts could contribute to students harming themselves in the future.

LGBTQ ideologies or lifestyles could not be harmful in any way. They refused to admit any legitimacy to differing beliefs on the topic and refused to admit there may be a significant percentage of the community that feels and believes as we do.

Any kids who come out as gay or transgender could not have underlying mental illness, familial, or emotional problems that may have prompted their self-identification.

Controversial sexual ideologies are not promoted or glorified at school. And yet they are pleased with the “progress” they’ve made as a school in this area of making it a “safe place” of support for LGBTQ-identifying kids and they want to do more.

The school is not promoting sexual ideologies, but also, the state is to blame for CCSD’s promotion of them.  New York State provides them with a “Cultural Sustaining Framework” that they “have” to follow, though they admitted it was not a mandate. (For more on the Framework, see our Proof page.)  Further, they must follow Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) requirements.  CCSD is currently drafting its own DEI plans; see HERE.  The administrators said the state requires schools to reflect in their curriculum that they’re serving everyone.  They alternated between saying that their hands are tied as far as policies, and also that what’s occurring at CCSD is great.

• The parents made the point that though certain state requirements are understood, each local school district has a choice about how to form and implement those requirements.  The state does not mandate sexual ideology signage, advertisements, celebration of Pride month, etc.
• In fact, after the meeting we found a quote by the New York State Board of Regents within CCSD’s DEI plan admitting that local schools essentially have the power to decide how far they want to take their DEI policies.  It says, “We recognize that the decision to adopt a DEI policy, as well as the contents of such a policy, are ultimately matters of local discretion.”

Our expectations of what we want them to refrain from talking about or advertising is out of touch. The administrators said this is what New York State public schools are doing and our petition sounds as though we’re expecting them to be a private school or a very small rural school with no diversity.