BREAKING: DENVER, COLORADO– A school district has until Saturday to respond to a demand letter from a girl’s parents, following an incident where the school district assigned the 11-year-old girl to share a bed with a biological boy who identifies as transgender without informing her parents.
According to the demand letter, Jefferson County Public Schools in the Denver area assigned the fifth grade girl to a room with three other students, including two girls from her school and a (trans-identifying) boy from a different school during a cross-country overnight trip.
This overnight trip took place in June, leaving from Denver and arriving in destinations Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., said the letter.
The girl was ordered to share a bed with the trans-identifying boy, who was in “stealth mode,” meaning his trans identity was kept under wraps by the school district. She found out his biological sex when he revealed it to her on the first night of the trip, and the girl became uncomfortable, according to the letter.
The girl then reportedly snuck into the bathroom and called her mother, who had come on the trip but was not a chaperone. The fifth grader and her mother then asked the chaperones to move her into a different room, but initially, the chaperones tried to merely switch her bed within the same room.
Eventually, the chaperones moved the boy to a different room, and “lied” to the other students about the reasoning, claiming that one of the girls needed more space, the letter indicates.
“An 11-year-old child was placed in a position where she feared social backlash if she requested a different room in front of other students,” reads the Dec. 4 letter from Kate Anderson, director of the Center for Parental Rights at Alliance Defending Freedom.
“This practice renders it impossible for these parents to make informed decisions about their children’s privacy, upbringing, and participation in school-sponsored programs.”
The girl’s parents, Joe and Serena Wailes, are demanding answers from the school district in their letter. They voice their objection to their daughter rooming with a child of the opposite sex, particularly without their knowledge or permission.
The demand letter seeks to force the district to clarify its policies around trans-identifying youth and respond to whether it will continue to “intentionally” withhold information about rooming dynamics from parents.
“This practice [of withholding information] renders it impossible for these parents to make informed decisions about their children’s privacy, upbringing, and participation in school-sponsored programs,” the letter says.
“I felt a bit helpless,” the young girl’s father, Joe Wailes, said. “I was 2,000 miles away. My daughter is scared in a bathroom trying to get herself out of a situation. It was a frustrating experience, and I just really felt like it was not a situation my daughter should be put in.”
The parents claim that the district had assured parents on multiple occasions that boys and girls would be roomed on different floors during the trip. Trip chaperones even instructed the students that boys and girls were not permitted to visit the floor of the opposite sex, they said.
The trans-identifying boy’s “privacy and feelings were always the primary concern” of school employees, and the girl was neither regarded nor considered, the demand letter alleges.
The following images are excerpts from the demand letter by Joe and Serena Wailes, who are represented by Alliance Defending Freedom. The letter is to Superintendent Tracy Dorland, Colorado-based Jefferson County School Board and Jefferson County Public Schools.
This is a developing story. The school district has been called to respond to this demand letter by Saturday, December 18, 2023, at 6 p.m. Visit www.KatyChristianMagazine.com for the latest breaking news.
