As a parent, you are the primary authority and steward of your child’s education and moral upbringing. Yet, in today’s public school system, many Christian families are alarmed (if not horrified) by the content being taught to children as young as five years old—particularly in areas like “comprehensive” sex education, gender identity, and radical ideological instruction.
There are also classes, materials, and extracurricular activities being promoted in public schools that directly conflict with Christian beliefs and family values. That’s the bad news. The good news? Parents still have the right to opt their children out of these harmful programs and agendas.
Parents, grandparents, and church leaders must respond proactively to protect the hearts and minds of children from the wicked propaganda to which too many government school bureaucrats are exposing and encouraging children into early sexual experimentation, homosexuality, and transgender confusion.
Now that Gov. JB Pritzker has signed a new law requiring universal mental health screening in Illinois public schools, Christian parents should be especially alert. Do you want your child’s emotional and psychological well-being assessed through the lens of secular ideologies that reject biblical truth? There are serious reasons to be concerned that the state’s values will not align with your family’s faith.
Who decides what qualifies as a mental health issue? Can we really trust government-approved professionals to make such judgments when many of them reject the foundational truth that God created us male and female—and that God has set clear moral boundaries for sexuality and life?
Also, what happens when a boy who thinks he is a girl is screened by the school district, and this desire is discovered? Will the school notify the parents—or conceal it in the name of “affirmation”? What if the parents disagree with the label or proposed treatment—do they have any rights or recourse? Will the DCFS be called in to interrogate parents, or worse?
And will the same institutions now labeling children as mentally unwell also promote curriculum that normalizes LGBTQ ideology and graphic sex-ed, even in kindergarten?
OPT OUT
Parents, if you’re unable to homeschool your child or afford private education, please consider protecting him/her from radical sex education, mental health screenings, and other godless indoctrination. Click on the check below to access the form to opt them out of these classes.
This Opt Out Form should be printed and signed. As parents, grandparents, and church leaders to these precious kids, we—not the school and not the teacher—are responsible for their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. If you do not want your child exposed to sexual deviancy, please download this form and check the appropriate box(es). Instructions are included.
The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) is a non-profit legal defense organization committed to protecting parental rights—especially the right to opt children out of graphic, sexualized sex-ed curriculum. You can fill out their online opt-out form HERE.
To learn more about the legal issues facing public education today, request PJI’s free booklet HERE. This valuable resource covers everything from Bible clubs and campus prayer to confidential medical releases and students’ rights to express political and religious beliefs in the classroom. It’s an essential guide for parents, students, teachers, and administrators navigating today’s government schools.
Our friends at Awake Illinois also have several opt-out forms that you should consider using. They recommend that you download the forms and then:
After signing them, send as certified mail to the attention of the school principal. It’s worth sending an email as a heads up to the principal and ask for a meeting to discuss and answer and questions. Maintain an email communication confirming all meeting/conversation recaps, i.e.:
“Thank you, Principal Smith, for confirming receipt of the (insert form descriptions) and adding them to (student name) file. We appreciate school staff honoring our parental expectations on these issues. Please contact us anytime with questions or concerns.”
All of us—as taxpayers and concerned citizens—should boldly advocate for the protection of innocent children. We must respectfully but firmly insist that impressionable students not be exposed to materials, agendas, or activities that promote secular or humanistic ideologies in our public schools.
