Fourth graders in Minnesota were given an ‘equity survey’ about gender and race and were reportedly told by their teacher not to tell their parents about it.
Conducted at Riverview intermediate school in the Sartell-St. Stephen School District, the survey comes one year after the death of George Floyd, which started a national reckoning with race and led the city to pay $27 million in a wrongful death suit.
Student Hayley Yasgar told the school board how ‘nervous and uncomfortable’ she was when her teacher told them not to talk to their parents about the survey.
Yasgar also shared how they were told not to skip any questions even if they did not understand them.
One of the questions read: “Do you currently identify yourself as female, male, transgender (transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their assigned sex. For example, they were born male but now identify as female), or something else?”
Another student asked if his mother could explain some of the questions to him but the teacher denied his request and told him not to mention anything about the survey to their parents.
Hayley said that “being told to hide this from (her) mom made (her) feel very uncomfortable like (she) was doing something wrong.”
Speaking to Fox & Friends, Hayley’s mother, Kelsey Yasgar, said: “We were told that this “equity audit” was going to be taking place but … they didn’t tell us the day it was taking place. We weren’t really sure a lot of details behind it.
“Due to the lack of transparency from the school district and Equity Alliance for Minnesota , the third party, we were not informed of the questions on this survey.”
She also said that she was ‘upset’ when she discovered that her daughter was instructed not to share any of the questions with her parents.
“That should pose a great concern in any parent’s eye,” she added.
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