Parents: It’s Your Right to Know What Your Children are Being Taught

Kim is a mom from the Warwick School District. She and Warwick Parents for Change, a group of about 400 members, are fighting for parents’ voices to be heard on the school boards. Kim became especially passionate about curriculum after she discovered that students from kindergarten to 9th grade are reading books about transgenderism and featuring explicit police brutality, profanity, and drugs.

All parents should have the right to know what is being taught in their child’s classroom. They deserve to know what curriculum is being used and how it is chosen. Agenda-driven school curriculum is becoming more common in schools across Pennsylvania. How do parents figure out who makes these decisions and how to find the curriculum being used?

Who is making curriculum decisions?

The State Board of Education has given the power to local school boards to select and create curriculum. The Pennsylvania Code lays out what students across Pennsylvania need to comprehend throughout their schooling. The issue with this is that the requirements in the code are vague and leave much room for interpretation from school boards.

State assessments, such as the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and Keystone Exams, are used as accountability for schools. They are meant to show that the curriculum being used is effective and meets the criteria set out in the Pennsylvania Code for academic standards.

What does this all mean? It means that those elected to your school board are deciding what curriculum to use for your students to meet the standards and pass the state assessments. However, that does not stop them from adding any other extra-curricular classes or material that are not state required.

Teachers, on the other hand, are in charge of delivering the curriculum to the students. How the content is presented to the students is an essential piece to the question of good versus bad curriculum. While giving teachers the ability to make their own decisions in the classroom is good, it can create to a lack of accountability. If a teacher wants to include a book in his or her lesson plan that talks about sexual identity, for example, the parents do not have the power to override this decision.

How do I find my school’s curriculum?

Pennsylvania does not require schools to post details on what curriculum is being used. So how do you figure out what is being taught to your kids? Justin is a father of two students at Kissel Hill Elementary in Warwick. The curriculum issue has gotten so bad there, he might send his children to a private school instead. But he never would have know about it without the public curriculum committee.

School boards have curriculum committees that host public meetings. Parents, teachers, administrators, and anyone else who wants to give input or ask pertinent questions can attend the meeting. These committees have a variety of purposes, but the main one is to develop the school’s curriculum to meet the State’s requirements of proficiency level.

However, parents should not be discouraged if the committee cannot answer every question. While these committees do play the part of choosing the curriculum, the teachers are the ones implementing and integrating the material in the classroom. At times, you as the parent may have to go directly to the teacher to get specific questions answered about the curriculum and how they specifically deliver it in the classroom.

What are the steps again?

You can first find your school district’s website and see what information they have readily available for you. You can also see when and where the next curriculum committee meeting is scheduled. If this information is not readily available, reach out to the committee chair or a school board member. Their contact information should be on your school district’s website.

Next, make up your list of questions for the committee. For example, what are the core values of the curriculum that are integrated in the material? If your question is for a specific class or teacher, make up your list of questions for them to answer before setting up a meeting.

As the parent, you have a right to know what your child is being taught in school. The right to know how your child is being influenced and by what values and materials.