A high school teacher in Washington state suggested that schools should hide information about children from their parents, because kids “are not safe in this nation from their Christo-fascist parents.”
Kelly Love, who appears in Auburn School District’s directory as “Karen Love,” a teacher at Auburn High School, made the claim Thursday on Twitter.
Love had responded to a tweet that in turn was a reply to Nicole Neily, founder and president of Parents Defending Education.
“It’s impossible for parents to protect their children and make informed decisions about their welfare when schools are withholding critical information,” Neily tweeted. “It’s time this condescending behavior by school districts end.”
A Twitter user who claims to be a former teacher and retired principal drew attention to Neily’s declaration, warning parents to “check your school districts’ policy regarding keeping info about YOUR child secret from you. Schools should not have a right to keep info about your child from you unless abuse by you is suspected. There I said it and I mean it.”
“I cannot disagree with this more,” Love responded. “So many students are not safe in this nation from their Christo-fascist parents. And our guidelines and laws haven’t caught up with this.”
When The Daily Signal reached out on Twitter to ask Love to define “Christo-fascist,” the teacher responded by blocking the account. She did not respond to a follow-up email requesting comment.
Love runs a blog and includes a YouTube link in her Twitter bio, although the channel appears to be defunct.
The Auburn School District also did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Neily told The Daily Signal that Love’s public comment on Twitter illustrates why parents have lost trust in American education.
“We are a nation of laws, and families are guaranteed due process rights under the U.S. Constitution—which means that ‘educators’ like Ms. Love aren’t simply able to use their discretion to decide whether a family is ‘safe’ or not,” Neily said. “Teachers like this are one of the many reasons that parents have lost trust in the American education system—and the sooner that schools begin to rid themselves of activists like this, the better.”
Ian Prior, executive director of Fight for Schools and senior adviser at America First Legal, told The Daily Signal that Love’s comment should serve as a wake-up call to parents.
“On one hand, it’s utterly frightening that a teacher would hold the views that she is a better judge of children than their own parents and then publicly say so on Twitter,” Prior said. “On the other hand, having people in positions of authority say the quiet part out loud gives parents the opportunity to understand what is actually happening at their schools and take appropriate action.”
Parental rights in education has become a political flashpoint in recent years, after remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic opened up classrooms to parents, many of whom didn’t like what their children were learning. Issues such as gender ideology, critical race theory (a lens that encourages students to interpret America as systemically racist), and sexually explicit books have led parents to take an increasingly active role in policing education, especially as students’ math and reading scores decreased during the pandemic.
Some on the Left, most notably former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who lost his 2021 bid for a nonconsecutive second term, have argued that teachers, rather than parents, should determine what children learn, because they are professionals. This does not address the problem of activism in the classroom, however.
Meanwhile, Republicans such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have signed laws limiting gender, sexual, and divisive racial lessons in class, partially to return instruction to a focus on the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Gender activists have argued that children who claim to identify as the gender opposite their biological sex are likely to commit suicide if others don’t “affirm” this transgender identity. Many parents, familiar with the changing fads of childhood, distrust these declarations of identity and oppose the rush to put children on a path to life-altering medications and irreversible surgeries.
Yet the activists frame this opposition as a threat to children’s health. One Virginia Democrat sponsored a bill to define opposition to gender identity as child abuse.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, last fall signed a law turning California into a “sanctuary state” for “gender-affirming care.” The measure gives California courts the ability to award custody of a child if someone removes that child from parents in another state to obtain such “care” over the parents’ disagreement.
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