When Laura Girdner’s fourth-grade twin daughters came home from school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and described a strange video they had watched in class, Girdner and her husband assumed her girls had misunderstood it. Her daughters told them a man in a dress had used a magic wand to give girls in the video pubic hair.
“So we look up the video, and it’s called ‘The Puberty Fairy,’ and it’s very much like a comedy thing. You would expect to see it on ‘Saturday Night Live,’” she said. “It’s certainly not educational or for children. It’s very offensive.”
Girdner had specifically opted her daughters out of the school’s puberty lesson and even planned to keep them home that day. But because the school never informed parents when the class would take place, her daughters ended up attending anyway.
And to make matters worse, when Girdner confronted school officials over what her daughters had been shown during the class, the school nurse tried to deny showing the video at all before eventually admitting that she selected the clip from YouTube herself after students allegedly pressured her to play it.
Girdner said she wasn’t the only parent who complained about the incident, but little changed. In fact, for the mother of four, it became one of several experiences that convinced her that New Mexico parents need to pay much closer attention to what happens inside classrooms.
Originally from New York, Girdner moved to Santa Fe to attend college before later returning to New Mexico with her husband in 2006. Deeply involved in their church and ministry, Girdner was concerned about the academics and school culture available to her growing children. So, the family tried homeschooling a couple of their kids before eventually returning to public school. But new concerns emerged when they did.
When one of her sons attended a seventh-grade sex education class at Mandela International Magnet School, Girdner said he returned home describing instructional materials about ‘gender identity.’
“They said, ‘This is when you’re going to start to decide what your gender is,’” she recalled.
According to Girdner, students were also told they could pursue ‘gender identity’-related medical interventions without parental knowledge and involvement.
To make matters worse, teachers apparently congratulated students on coming out to their families as bisexual.
Wanting to understand exactly what her sons and their peers were being taught, Girdner contacted school officials to request the curriculum.
Girdner says the principal directed her to the third-party organization providing the program, which she later learned was connected to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. Although she attempted to do her due diligence and ask for the materials directly, Girdner says school administrators deflected and gave her the email address for a woman representing the organization that drafted the sex education class.
“I was like, ‘Hey, my son just had this class. I’d like to see your curriculum, so we know what was discussed and we can talk about it at home.’ And she was very defensive, and she asked, ‘How did you get my email?’ And she said, ‘That’s proprietary information. We don’t share that,’” Girdner recalled.
Roughly around the same time, her twin daughters were assigned the novel “Norwegian Wood” by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. After reading portions herself, Girdner said she was shocked by the graphic sexual content and depictions of suicide.
“And mind you, a 13-year-old kid had just killed himself in the school,” she added. “And so I write again to the teacher, to the principal, and I’m like, ‘What is this book? You guys have kids killing themselves. It’s very graphic. I don’t know if you had a chance to read it yet, but that account is from the perspective of this 30-year-old woman.’”
According to Girdner, when she spoke with another dad whose special-needs daughter was also assigned the book, he told her the principal had polled the students and that, despite the explicit sexual accounts, it “was their favorite book.”
As criticism of the school’s curriculum spread publicly, Girdner said the principal privately assured her the novel would no longer be taught while he remained at the school.
But by this time, Girdner’s concerns had grown beyond any single book. When another of her sons was in fifth grade, for example, Girdner said he was assigned the book “Stamped” by Ibram X. Kendi and asked to complete a report on anti-racism.
“So I read the book,” Girdner said, “You can’t just not be racist anymore. You have to be an anti-racist now. And frankly, I think a lot of those things are very racist to white people.”
Girdner eventually brought her concerns before the school board. She said she worries that speaking publicly could create difficulties for her family, but she’s hoping her example will inspire other parents to become more engaged before problems arise.
“I think parents need to be involved in the schools and show up to help teachers at events and such,” she said. “Volunteering in the classroom is one really easy, good way to kind of know what’s going on.”
She also encouraged parents in New Mexico to ask children detailed questions after health classes and request the curriculum in advance.
“I think if parents actually saw what was going to be talked about, they might think twice about allowing their kids to go to those classes,” Girdner said.
Ultimately, Girdner hopes that New Mexico schools will shift their focus back to academics, while families retain authority over deeply personal subjects.
“The people we know who’ve been born and raised here for the most part are not the ones that are kind of trying to impose this agenda––all the transgender stuff and LGBTQ and abortion,” she said. “All these random ideas don’t seem to be … what the people who are from here really would value, and so I definitely feel passionate about speaking up.”
This article has been updated to correct a factual error in an earlier version.
