A group of parents in North Hollywood, California, plan to keep their elementary school children home on June 2 in protest of a planned Pride assembly.
The assembly is set to take place at Saticoy Elementary School in the Los Angeles Unified School District to celebrate Pride Month.
A parent’s group with the Instagram page “Saticoy Elementary Parents” posted for people to keep their children home that day.
“Keep your kids home on June 2nd!” the group urged. “We are parents of elementary school children, who have the right to introduce sexually explicit topics at our discretion. Yes any topic that is related to LGBTQ is is sexually explicit. Why? Our children are innocent and have no idea what is out there.”
The post continued, “we as parents have the right to introduce these topics at our discretion. Instead, we are being forced into talking about topics that should not burden our children for many years to come.”
Another post says that the school has “a large population of Armenian & Hispanic families many who are Christian & or share conservative values [and] don’t feel this material is appropriate to teach to the children and believe it’s a parents’ [sic] right to choose.”
The parents group is posting the messages in English, Spanish and Armenian to make sure they reach all families.
KTLA reports that parents also plan to protest outside the school on the day of the assembly.
“We respect everyone, but some things are appropriate for children (of) that age, and some things are not,” parent George Dzhabroyan told the station. “Hopefully the message gets across and people understand that parents should be the primary contact of what their children should be exposed to and shouldn’t be exposed to.”
In a statement provided to KTLA, the school district said that the topic is an “active discussion.”
“As part of our engagement with school communities, our schools regularly discuss the diversity of the families that we serve and the importance of inclusion,” LAUSD said in a statement. “This remains an active discussion with our school communities and we remain committed to continuing to engage with families about this important topic.”
