Don't say it never happens, it did in JeffCo. Ambivalence on state funding for religious Pre-K. Lastly, putting enrichment within the reach of those with lesser means.

I don't want to hash out transgenderism.  Transgender rights.  Pronouns.  Any of the other culture war items.

But I do want to share something with you that you do not hear often amid the clamor.  Certainly not something you see or hear on the more liberal media outlets.

If you read the story below you'll learn about a law suit by a couple of parents whose child was bunked with a transgendered student on an overnight school trip.  That is, the couple's daughter was shared a hotel room with another student who was biologically male but identified as a female.  These were 5th grade students.


Again, I don't want to debate the culture war issues that swirl about this story.  I want to keep focus on a couple of details here. 


First, the parents were not informed that this would happen.  In fact, they were told by school officials that, quoting the story linked below, "... female and male students would be roomed on different hotel floors, and on the trip the students were told by chaperones that boys were not even allowed to visit the girls’ floor, and vice versa, without permission, according to the letter."


Now, it may be that some parents would have no issues whatsoever with this sort of sleeping arrangement (that of their girl in a room with a transgendered girl).  Some may.  The main issue here to me is the parents' right to know and to weigh in on the decision.  The main issue is the fact that the school sought to substitute its judgment for that of the parents.  


Second, I want you to keep this story in your pocket.  The relentless drumbeat from many in the media is that concern over issues like these are smoke and mirrors.  Just those rascally conservatives agitating again to get the base whipped up and keep the campaign money going.  

Whether intentional or inadvertent, things like this happen and will continue to happen as we as a society sort out where the lines are. I think they're rare, but they are concerning enough in how they're handled that they cannot be dismissed. Do not let the media and others make you think your concern and your watchfulness is unnecessary or aberrant.


https://denvergazette.com/news/jeffco-schools-transgender-policy-attacked/article_d4a2cb3c-92f3-11ee-9180-bf550fe786ef.html#google_vignette

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Another thorny issue to think over.  

The post previous to this one is a thorny issue and this one is no different.  While I feel like I have a good handle on where I stand for the previous one, I have to admit to some ambivalence on this issue.  

Quick Note:  I posted on this article previously, but that was in the context of the media's handling of the experts in the article.  I saved and am revisiting this article in the context of whether or not we should be allowing religious preschools to participate in the Universal Pre-K program.  I wanted to write about both and decided to space them out a bit.  

The Chalkbeat story linked below is a discussion of the issue of whether or not state Universal Pre-K dollars should be going to schools that will use those dollars to (in part or in full) support religious instruction.  

Colorado had enough trouble on its plate just getting this program off the ground (and a couple lawsuits around religious freedom already) that I think they tabled this question.

But I don't think that "tabling" will last.  According to the article, quoting here, "Colorado early childhood officials have proposed a ban on religious instruction in a set of rules they plan to approve next spring."


Note:  link left in the quote so you can follow up if you'd like. 

This is a tough one for me.  I worked in a religious school (Jesuit).  At that school, I got an appreciation for the value of daily/regular worship and religious activity--including at the purely pragmatic level of something that gives structure to students' lives and as something that forces them to stop and consider (something we all of us need more of).

At the same time, I'll be completely honest and say that I'm not really a religious or devout person, who is at heart a civil libertarian.  As such, I don't want anyone taking my tax money for things I disagree with or forcing anyone to profess any sort of faith they don't have.

Legally, this is a troublesome issue too because, and there's plenty more context in the article,  you face the problem of a separation of church and state vs. the state treating religious and secular institutions differently.  

I wish I felt more clarity on this issue.  I would enjoy seeing your thoughts on this if you feel inclined to share.  

I suppose that in the meantime, I'll await any sort of concrete proposal before getting too far into the weeds.

One last thing, a bit of context that I think is worth adding.  I know someone  who teaches at a private religious preschool near me.  This person has told me that the school is considering pulling out of the program (and was shaky on signing up to begin with) if the state clamps down on the religious instruction.  

I want you to put that next to the stated goals of the program to offer parental choice in preschool and also the issue of access to schools at all in tiny rural areas where the providers might be few and far between.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/2023/11/28/potential-religious-education-ban-in-state-funded-preschools/

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One more on schools to round out the day:  an innovative program to get kids whose families might otherwise not have the resources into after school enrichment programs.  

You don't get to choose the family you're born into.  Young ones are at the mercy of the choices and luck of the families they end up in.  

As such, I think we often fall short of offering our young ones the true equality of opportunity that reasonable people aspire to.**

And I would extend this to what we offer kids OUTSIDE of the schoolhouse.  

Think about where we as a society could be if children who lived in poorer, smaller districts had access to the kinds of enrichment programs (here I include things like tutoring or extra academic help, programs that offer a challenge to gifted children, and programs that offer things like the arts and sports) that the wealthy have wherewithal enough to purchase outright.  

These are exactly the kinds of things I would like to see funded when we talk about putting more money into our childrens' futures (this is as opposed to merely dumping more into the education machine).  

The Sun article linked first below details a private program that is offering money to low-income families so their young ones can participate in a variety of after school enrichment activities.  

And lest you think that things like dance or sports would not have academic impact, I'd offer you the following quote out of the article from one of the mothers involved in the program.  

“'The coach wouldn’t allow them to play if they didn’t have a certain grade point average,' Shears recalled.  'He started to have a friendly competition with one of his friends about grades and he started to make straight A’s. That’s when he realized he could do it and he just kept doing it. And of course we wanted a scholarship for basketball. He didn’t get that but he did get an academic scholarship to CSU and he is a second-year engineering student.'”

I fully support programs like these and wish that we as a society would choose to invest more in things like it.  We would be better off and we would be making actual strides toward realizing truer equality of opportunity.  

Alas, as you can see in the "Bill History" for the 2022 bill linked second below (the bill was introduced and summarily killed in the Senate), I think the people running this state do not agree.

Would that they did.  Would that helping children have equality of opportunity meant something other than pumping yet more dollars into a bloated bureaucracy that seems to exist merely to take whatever increases in funding it receives while producing the same mediocre outcomes.  

**This was one of the things that motivated me to continue working at the first school I taught at for as long as I did.  This was the kind of school that offered a chance for kids from poverty to get a chance to see just what they could become if they decided to work hard.  

https://coloradosun.com/2023/12/12/after-school-activities-denver-spark/

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb22-039