Rocklin Academy in Sacramento has chosen to defend a kindergarten teacher who introduced five-year-olds to transgenderism and parents have responded by withdrawing 73 students from the school.

LifeSiteNews is reporting on the mass exodus of students that has occurred as a result of an unannounced lesson in transgenderism that was taught to kindergartners in June that left many children upset and confused.

The lesson involved a kind of “transition ceremony” involving a little boy who left the class and then reappeared in girls clothes. He was then reintroduced to his kindergarten classmates as a girl. Teacher Kaelin Swaney then read the pro-transgender book, I am Jazz, to the children.

Parents were given no notification about the class.

As a result, children came home that day very confused, wondering if they were supposed to pick their own gender, or if they were really a boy or a girl. One girl came home crying and shaking in fear that she could turn into a boy.

Such an inept handling of this very sensitive issue should have warranted a reprimand to the teacher but the school chose to defend her instead, which only aggravated parents more.

“It was just the tipping point for most families,” said one parent. Although there were other reasons why parents began to pull their children from the school, the transgender travesty was very much a “part of everyone’s reason,” she said.

To make matters worse, a five-member board meeting was held on September 19 which resulted in the rejection of a “model parent proposal” that would have given parents advance notice of the teaching of sensitive materials and would have allowed those who were opposed to opt out.

According to KCRA, the board approved a literary policy that will allow controversial books like I Am Jazz to be read in class and will not allow parents the option of opting their children out of the lesson. However, the school said they would “endeavor” to notify parents about such controversial topics in the future.

A number of teachers actually defended Swaney at the meeting, which was a turning point for parents.

“They were saying, ‘your kids will surprise you, they’re so accepting and loving, this is a great topic for kindergarteners to learn.’ … They were there to tell us parents to get out of the way,” one parent told LifeSite.

“I did not feel safe sending my kids to school after that meeting. . . . It’s a very tense atmosphere over there right now. It’s very like, which side are you on,” she said. “You don’t know who to trust, you don’t know who’s looking at you the wrong way.”

Elizabeth Ashford, who works for Fiona Hutton and Associates, the public relations firm hired by Rocklin Academy, defended the school, saying that California law allows parents to opt their children out of sex ed classes, but this was not a sex ed class.

“It’s like race or religion or ethnicity. It’s a protected class but it’s not sex ed so parents actually don’t have the opportunity to opt out and it would be illegal for the school to make it possible to opt out,” Ashford said.

However, California Family Council Director Greg Burt countered by saying the law “does not prohibit an opt-out provision for school districts, so for them to say that is just disingenuous.”

As a result, scores of parents are withdrawing their child from the school. One parent, who spoke to LifeSiteNews anonymously, said the school reportedly has a waiting list of 1,300 but a friend whose child was 110 on the list, and who turned down the spot, was just called.

“So that means they called 110 people before they called her, and they all turned the spot down,” the parent said.

She also made it clear that those who are leaving Rocklin Academy are “not saying anything hateful or bigoted” regarding the transgender student involved in the ruckus.

“In fact, [many] of us have cried over this poor child because we feel for him. I don’t think he’s in a great situation.”

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