Faith Leader Toolkit:  Parent Power Website and database

TOP LINES

• The protection of children and parental rights faces unprecedented challenges as we move from 2022 into 2023. Government at all levels, elementary and secondary school systems, and hospitals across the country are implementing policies that infringe on parental rights and place the health and safety of children at risk.
• School-aged children are being taught racism in the form of Critical Race Theory or its variants and radical gender theory, with millions of parents from all walks of life fearful and wondering how to stop and reverse these destructive trends. 
• The America First Policy Institute’s Center for 1776 created a new tool that can help parents, pastors, faith leaders, and activists get more engaged to ensure our children become properly educated citizens as adults. This new website, Parent Power (tps://parentpower.americafirstpolicy.com), is a valuable tool for America First leaders working to regain American culture for our children. Parent Power launched in November 2022 and provides parents and activists critical information on how they can personally act to counter harmful anti-child and anti-parent policies at all levels of government, from local school systems to policies that flow from Washington, D.C. Parents are empowered with easily accessible information to contact their local school board members. Parents have access to talking points, file incident reports, news, and more.
• This document aims to equip faith leaders to educate their faith congregations on these actions and better empower their communities to stand up for the beliefs they hold dear and affirm America First policies. 

INTRODUCTION 

Across the country, 49.5 million students were in attendance from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in public and private schools to begin the 2021–2022 school year (source, National Center for Education Statistics). The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted just how radical and extreme many classrooms were, not just in secondary education but beginning as early as kindergarten and pre-k. Parents, often motivated by faith, began to speak out (https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/the-great-parent-revolt )and ask how they could get involved, (https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2022/10/11/dearborn-school-board-meeting-protestors-lgbtq-books/69554361007/) how they could help curb these harmful practices, and foster a return to the fundamentals of education. Parent groups have formed around the country to oppose radical race agendas, which divide children by race, as well as gender theory and pornography discussions in the classroom. Actions by parents to attend school board meetings and elect candidates who affirm an America First framework that upholds our country’s founding principles are challenging those destructive forces as never before. While progress is being made, the America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Center for 1776 created additional tools in the fight to protect our children and ensure parental rights. The new Parent Power website (https://parentpower.americafirstpolicy.com) is an answer to the question millions of American parents are now asking, “What can I do to help? How can I get better informed to influence how my children are being taught in school?”

Unfortunately, actions by the Biden Administration indicate that it prioritizes the imposition of a radical gender ideology agenda over the rights of parents and the well-being of school-age students. This is especially damaging in education and health care policies. 

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden released his “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.” This order required every federal agency (https://www.foxnews.com/media/pentagon-schools-infested-shocking-pornographic-material-military-kids-time-send-pic )to reevaluate their non-discrimination laws and, if necessary, rework them to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” This vast expansion of non-discrimination law—promulgated by unelected bureaucratic agencies rather than elected officials—represents a significant threat to faith-based institutions and religious individuals. They now must, in opposition to strongly held beliefs, accommodate gender identity and sexual orientation demands of all individuals or risk losing their federal funding. It is hard for people of goodwill to imagine that a Presidential Administration would work to force radical sexuality agendas on school systems that could lead to needy school children not receiving food. Or that social service providers with long track records of providing necessary services in health care, after-school programs, adoption, foster care, and so many others would be forced to lose contracts and grants over extreme political agendas. The Parent Power website provides parents with the resources necessary to combat these harmful ideologies and ensure our children receive the quality education they deserve.

In line with this order, agencies like the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and others are presently working to amend federal statutes like Title IX to remove parental rights in schools and healthcare. These policy changes influence curriculum development in local schools to inject pornography and other harmful materials into school systems, allow biological males in locker rooms with girls, and create financial incentives for hospital systems to conduct harmful and irreversible surgeries on the bodies of boys and girls without parental consent. These profound and swift changes rightly outrage people of goodwill around the country. Parents are speaking up and pushing back. AFPI shares the frustrations of millions of American parents and is working to provide solutions to stop and then reverse these harmful trends. 

The Parent Power website (https://parentpower.americafirstpolicy.com) is an innovative tool offered by AFPI that assists beleaguered parents in the crucial battle waged against their rights. The user-friendly website includes resources on model policies, state-by-state information on school board elections and members, contact information for nearly all our Nation’s school board members, and an ability to report incidents in your local school district and up-to-date polling on a variety of issues that are important to traditional-minded citizens. 

The affirmation of America as a land of opportunity for almost 250 years is a legacy that must be reinforced in our schools, not torn down by those seeking to divide with false narratives.

POLLING DATA

• 78% of voters say it is very easy or somewhat easy to define what a woman is (March 31–April 2, 2022).
• 70% of voters believe that young elementary school children should not be taught (March 10-–2, 2022) that they can change their gender (only 15% said they should be taught this idea).
• 69% of registered voters believe it is inappropriate to withhold school lunch funding from schools that do not follow the Biden Administration’s gender guidelines, including 56% who think it is “very inappropriate” (August 9–11, 2022).
• 63% of voters say that performing transgender surgery on young children should be against the law (March 10–12, 2022).
• 61% of voters oppose allowing biological males to use the women’s restrooms under the Biden Administration’s new guidance (August 9–11).

SCRIPTURE’S TEACHING

As faith leaders, we are commanded by the holy scriptures to look after our children and raise them with the proper guidance according to God’s divine plan. The Bible clearly declares this to us in the following passages:

“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

“And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. But if you cause one of these little ones who trust me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matthew 18:5-6

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” 3 John 1:4

VALUES MESSAGING

• The Biden Administration is once again putting its radical agenda above the education and health of our children while threatening religious liberty. 
  • Tens of millions of American children must not be robbed of the American ideal that our Nation has been, and will continue to be, a land of opportunity. The Biden Administration is placing an extreme political agenda above the education and health of America’s children
• This radical transgender ideology is being pushed at all levels of government and threatens bedrock principles of parental rights.
  • On the first day of his administration, President Biden issued an executive order requiring every single federal agency to reevaluate their non-discrimination laws and, if necessary, rework them to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Most notably, this applies to education through Title IX. Importantly, these changes to current law replace the rights of parents with the judgment of un-elected, radical bureaucrats.

CALL TO ACTION

1. Sign up on Parent Power to receive regular updates and track what is occurring in our Nation’s schools.
2. Fight for the rights of all parents to determine where they send their children to school and their right to voice concerns about gender identity and other radical policies in school.
3. Encourage your community to reach out to its teachers and school board members and request transparency on all gender identity policies in the school. School board member contact information can be easily found on Parent Power.
4. Encourage your congregation to vote in school board elections. The timing of school board elections can be found on Parent Power.
5. Spread this information to ensure parents across the country are informed. Copy and paste the above information to your social media pages or make a video about this.
6. Resource congregations with the right language to engage in civil discourse to advance ideas that counter radical gender ideology and critical race theory.
7. Encourage thoughtful engagement by concerned parents in public forums to ensure their voices are heard in these critical discussions.
8. Educate congregations on the harms of gender reassignment surgeries and critical race theory.
9. Organize regular meetings with like-minded faith-based parents, individuals, and organizations to strategize in your local context to push for parental rights.

PARENT POWER RESOURCES INCLUDE

• SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER INFORMATION
  • Provides the School Board Members’ name and email, the election timing as well as the member’s term end dates.
• PARENT POWER RESOURCES 
  •  School choice policies for all 50 states.
  • How to Attend a School Board Meeting and What to Say 
  • What to Look Out for in Curriculum 
  • How to Run for School Board Member 
  • How to Vote for School Board Members 
  • Protecting your Children from Radical Race and Gender Ideology
• MODEL POLICIES
  • This feature empowers legislators and interested parties with access to model policies for states to implement in order to protect parental rights and drive transparency and accountability in our schools. 
• NEWS AND POLLING DATA
  • This feature provides daily education news updates and critical polling data regarding education issues.
• INCIDENT REPORT 
  • This feature provides parents the opportunity to share their stories in exposing what is going on in their schools.