At least two families have decided to remove their children from Stetson Middle School after over-the-top gay pride celebrations this year.
Jim Jacobs said he and his brother have decided to send their children to different schools because of what he believes is cultural indoctrination instead of education occurring in the West Chester Area School District.
“The last thing I wanted to do was to transfer my son for his 8th-grade year, but enough is enough,” said Jacobs. “At Stetson, there is no freedom of speech but freedom of ‘woke’ speech. The tolerance promoted by Diversity/Equity/Inclusion is not practiced towards those who have disagreements with or dare to question the ‘woke’ agenda.”
During the gay pride celebrations, boys were encouraged to wear dresses during Gay Pride Month and a male teacher taught in high heels. However, Jacobs’ son was pulled out of class for wearing Uggs that officials deemed slippers, although the youth had worn Uggs the previous year without incident.
“So my son gets disciplined for wearing Uggs (which are said to not adhere to the dress code), but boys are encouraged to wear dresses and male teachers can teach in stilettoes! Really?” Jacobs said. “I called Assistant Principal (James) DeWitt to ask if that was true. He verified it and told me that ‘boys dressing as girls and a male teacher wearing high heels is perfectly acceptable and not in violation of the dress code.’”
And DeWitt also told Jacobs, “This teacher has worn high heels on multiple occasions and that if the teacher is comfortable wearing them, then the school supports him.”
“My son told me that the same teacher who wears high heels would wave the gay pride flag and march it through the cafeteria at lunch and that this was completely accepted and encouraged,” said Jacobs. “How are these not clear-cut examples of indoctrination and the promotion of a specific social agenda?”
“The final straw was the fact that students were encouraged to wear ‘gay pride’ flags for Gay Pride Week. My son’s friends were wearing American flags, and he wanted to wear a Blue Lives Matter flag. I saw nothing wrong with that since if students are allowed to wear Gay Pride flags, others should be allowed to wear an American flag, right?
“However, a gay student opposed the American flags being worn, so Mrs. Heather Selgrath, the 8th-grade counselor, told students who were wearing American flags and Blue Lives Matter flags (my son) that they had to take them off and put them away in their lockers,” said Jacobs.
“It’s selective enforcement of the dress code,” Jacobs said. “It’s ridiculous.”
Also, Jacobs said his 12-year-old niece had to do a book report this semester, but her only option was to do one on a Black or transgendered person.
“Why?” he asked.
“My brother is flipping out,” Jacobs said. “They had his daughter wearing all this make-up and posing with another girl because that’s what they’re encouraging.”
Both Jacobs and his brother are sending their children to Catholic schools in the fall.
“Students were encouraged to take pictures with same-sex students in front of the gay pride flag at school,” he said. There were also pictures on the wall for students to pose with. “When the LBTGQ display by the pride flag is examined closely, pictures of various individuals on the school wall can be seen,” he said.
“Googling two of their names gave extremely disturbing results,” he said. One was Frida Kahlo, “who was a Communist artist ‘regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement, and the LGBTQ+ movement,’” he said. “And another was Bianca Del Rio, who is a drag queen comedian, ‘whose YouTube videos contain off-color raunchy, comedy routines and discuss heroin usage and men’s penises.’ One has to question the academic value of displaying these pictures in a middle school for 11 to 13-year-old children.”
“These activities and displays are unquestionable distractions and liabilities to academic learning, which should be the primary purpose of our public schools,” Jacobs continued. “Promotion of political and social agendas should be verboten. Unfortunately, freedom of speech doesn’t exist anymore in public schools such as in the WCASD…there is only freedom of ‘woke’ speech and selective enforcement of dress codes. Taxpayers should not be required to fund this nonsense.”
“This is unbelievable, crazy stuff,” Jacobs said about the school’s emphasis on LGBTQ issues. “It’s not enough to be gay. You have to be flamboyantly gay.”
Elana Fishbein, a Lower Merion resident and founder of No Left Turn in Education said, “Our schools have been completely derailed by woke people who call themselves ‘educators.’ These woke mobsters hijacked the schools and are suffocating and sexualizing our children with their perverted ideology. For them, furthering an ideology is their mission, not imparting knowledge and skill building. And while religion was chased out of school halls long ago, this ideology has become, ironically, not only a new religion but a cult. Today, they are the true schoolyard bullies.”
A spokeswoman for WASD did not respond to a request for comment.
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