Sparks Republican Women’s September Meeting

Karen England never envisioned herself as a sex education “specialist” but she is as she advocates for parental rights in Northern Nevada and California.

In speaking to Sparks Republican Women at their September dinner meeting, she evoked a little laughter and at least one gasp.

England is Executive Director of the Nevada Family Alliance, a group of citizens standing up for their values. Her family’s roots are deep in Sparks/Reno and after 20 years in California, they returned “home.”

For this night, her focus was on Drag Queen Story Hour and Washoe County School District Sex Education.

“I never thought I’d Our September speaker be passionate about sex education, but I’ve had a calling … and I am.
It is an attack (with) what’s going on and what’s going on in Washoe County should not be. We should be able to stop it, but people are thinking that will never happen here. That’s California or San Francisco. It’s going on here and in many ways, Nevada is ahead of California for some legislative bills.”

She said the legislation took on the guise of suicide and higher suicide rates. “You now need to have special policy and counseling for them. When you boil it down, it really is transgender, gender non-conformity of students
so it’s really now indoctrination. There are some things progressives are doing down in Carson City that
even California is behind in.”

She said some things WCSD is doing are pre-Obama, pre-California such as allowing a boy who believes he’s a girl into the bathrooms. This applies to overnight field trips, into locker rooms.

“ I found out about the Drag Queen Story Hour by a fluke. At the same time this came up, I was contacted by someone who wanted to do a story on Noah’s Ark at her local library in Spanish Springs. The request had been denied. While some say ‘just don’t go and don’t take your kid’ but this Story Hour is at a tax-funded building, it is taxfunded resources, this is government endorsed. If they want to have a private event at Barnes & Noble, go for
it. You won’t see me protesting. But when you’re part of government and you’re having adult entertainers …
this is adult entertainment and when is it ever appropriate for adult entertainers read to our toddlers through 6th grade?

“It’s not about literacy, it’s about pushing a social agenda and it’s an agenda people don’t want. We all want to be tolerant. I don’t know any adult entertainment but brothels that are legal. Do we have them come and read books?

“So on Drag Queen Story Hour, a lot more will come out on that. In addition, all of those promos were on
our taxpayer dollars. They also participated – and I never heard of a library doing this – in the Gay Pride Parade
with their book cart and paid staff to do the book cart in the parade. I would think if you were trying to promote
your local library, you might go to a Nevada Day Parade or a Veterans Day parade because I don’t think a lot
of those at a Gay Parade are signing up for library cards.

“It is a total agenda, and I was disappointed in the response of the county commissioners. There was a lot of talk of ‘I’m with you but I can’t do anything about it.’ Yeah, they can but they didn’t want to.”

England said the head of the Washoe County Library System also is the head of the Nevada Library Association. He has made it clear he’s going to have more Drag Queen Story Hours. “We need to show these people that no, we don’t need adult entertainers around my 4 year old granddaughter at story hour with taxpayer funds.”

She next turned to Washoe County School District, why she became involved, where we’ve been and where we are today. “Hopefully you guys will get engaged and involved.”

Three and one-half years ago, the group recruited Andrew Caudill to run for School Board Trustee. He was elected as his church got very active and the alliance was able to change two seats in WCSD board election.
England lauded Caudill for doing everything right, how he walked and walked and walked, he was everywhere he could be.

“It was over sex ed that we flipped the seat. It was two people who were active in their church, who were active on this issue, were at the board meetings and active in their community. They were taking a stand for parental rights on it.”

England said one day about 4 years ago, she was looking at Facebook and saw that we’re a sanctuary school district. “I saw a quote from Angie Taylor, board president at the time, and thought that’s not true. But before I say something, I go to the district website and I see they’ve got this sex ed stuff. Oh My God, it’s passed through
the whole process. This is 6th Grade and teachers are told not refer to them as girls but refer to them as a person with a vulva (gasps across the room). When I went to the board meeting, the next week in the minutes said Mrs. England objected to the body part or something, that I had objected to the science. No, I objected to the curriculum for 6th Graders. What they were approving on gender identity for as young as 4th Grade.”

The advocate said Nevada charges the local community with providing input on what can be taught, what is appropriate and what is not. Also specified is who sits on a local committee: 5 of the 9 committee members are to be parents and also a religious leader and a doctor. WCSD has appointed parents who also are teachers at
schools and have a parent/teacher of gender ideology at UNR.

“So it’s not your every-day parent. There are a lot of things in which they have circumvented the law. The intent was very clear to have your community decide what was age-appropriate, and it mandated teaching about sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. It didn’t mandate all this other stuff Washoe County is teaching.
Washoe County is teaching sex ed in 4th Grade, the only district in the state. Why?”

She next turned to Gender Ideology. There is a committee which must follow the Open Meeting Law, Robert’s Rules of Order. In Washoe County, the district added a person as a district liaison who also is the SHARE coordinator. She runs the meetings, decides what goes and doesn’t get put on the agenda — this is outside of the law. For two years under this person, committee members were unable to agendize issues they wanted discussed.

“They finished up, and it’s all passed, sex ed for 9th Graders, 14-year olds. The district likes to say this is taught in high school, but they don’t tell you Health is required to graduate. Health is only taught in the second half of
9th Grade. If you think it’s 16-year olds, that’s not so bad. It’s bad. It’s important we get involved because
there is no better place to switch things as in a school board race.

“We’ve been very successful in the minority community, the Hispanic community. I have talked during church services, and they don’t even have the words when they’re translating because gender is boy and girl in Spanish.

“This is an issue that we should not be losing but we are in Washoe County.” She said teachers wrote this
curriculum for 9th Graders, it passed the school board and is going to be taught this year.

“They’re taking the 6th, 7th and 8th Graders and this is where we need to stop it. Then we can work on rolling back the other. We need to force it at the school board level and I think we can flip 2 to 3 of the 4 seats that are
coming up.”

England discussed current topics for 6th Graders which include decision-making skills, a nanny reproduction,
HIV/AIDS, non-sexual ways to express love.

“They’re too busy wanting to talk about where you can go locally to get your abortion at 14-year olds. They’re
going into gender identity, contraception. The age of consent in Nevada is 16 so why are we teaching 10-11-12
year olds how to consent to sex? In WCSD numbers, I think it’s 72 percent that are saying they are not sexually
active. Why aren’t we teaching kids to remain abstinent rather than teaching them where to go to get a dental
dam.”

England said WCSD is shifting the way of thinking of sex, teaching the kids to embrace their sexuality, their
body is their own, you have rights, you just have to be responsible and sex is for pleasure. They don’t mention that it’s in the confines of marriage. What is being taught is gender fluidity, you pick your gender. Sexual
Orientation and Gender explains what is lesbian and gay, bisexual, queer.

“Then it does this test where you can change your sexual orientation or you can change your attraction if you don’t want to be attracted to the same sex or if you believe you’re a different gender. The teachers are instructed to say that’s a myth and you can’t change. Teachers say church and other counseling could be harmful to the
student.”

She gave an example of “a Melissa” who wanted to be a boy until she realized she was attracted to boys. Kids are sexually confused then they are told they’ve been born with the wrong body, told to embrace it and what church and family are telling you may be harmful to you.

“They talk about abstinence and then proceed to tell your student that they need to come up with their
own definition of abstinence.”

She talked about lesson after lesson about oral sex with protection, vaginal sex with a condom, intercourse
without a condom, anal sex and more.

“We should be outraged, and we should be demanding change of that school board because there is nothing
in the law that says we have to teach this to our kids. WCSD is putting Planned Parenthood in the schools as
a resource.

“It’s unbelievable, unbelievable.”