An Iowa school district tells staff to avow gender ideology, honor American Indian land and decry slavery at some staff functions, according to documents obtained by public records request.
West Des Moines Community Schools acknowledgment statements “thank and honor” all gender identities as well as slave descendants and Native Americans, according to documents obtained by parental rights group Parents Defending Education (PDE).
“We acknowledge the Indigenous Native Americans on whose ancestral land we meet today,” one statement adopted by the school system reads. “We thank and honor the elders, ancestors, communities, and children of the Native Communities still connected to this land!”
The acknowledgments are used district-wide for internal trainings and professional developments.
“We acknowledge the contributions and achievements of enslaved Africans and their ascendants and descendants to our country,” another statement says. “We thank and acknowledge the full humanity of a people who shaped America.”
“We acknowledge that sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression are distinct and dynamic concepts,” the next statement reads. “We welcome and honor all gender identities, and we thank and acknowledge the full humanity and the contribution of all individuals.”
Another statement acknowledges victims of violence and trauma.
“We acknowledge victims and survivors of violence, assaults, and trauma of all types,” it says. “We honor you and affirm your experiences. Victims and survivors, seen and unseen, in this room and outside of it.”
“This is indoctrination,” Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for PDE, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The acknowledgements read like dogmatic mantras that one must recite in order to be in good standing in the district. There is no place for this in a public school district funded with public dollars that serves everyone, including those who want nothing to do with the ideology that informs these statements.”
District staff are also trained to “engage in shared learning relating to diversity, equity and inclusion” and “ask questions and offer feedback and perspectives using an equity lens,” according to slides from a February 2023 presentation of the School Improvement Advisory Committee shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“We collectively acknowledge that much of what we know of this country today including its culture, economic growth, and development throughout history and across time was made possible by the labor of enslaved Africans and their ascendants who suffered the horror of the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, and Jim Crow,” the presentation’s labor acknowledgment reads. “We are indebted to their labor and sacrifice and we acknowledge the tremors of that violence throughout the generations and the resulting impact that can still be felt and witnessed today.”
West Des Moines Community Schools encompasses 13 schools and represents 9,163 students and 1,581 staff, according to the district’s website.
The district did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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