Colorado Middle School requires employees to show LGBTQ+ videos

A middle school in Colorado set aside time for all students and staff to participate in a day-long LGBTQ+ celebration, encouraging students to watch a promotional video, participate in “solidarity activities,” and purchase related merchandise.

On April 19, Campus Middle School in the Greenwood Village community required staff to show a video and distribute worksheets and a list of activities encouraging students to participate in the LGBTQ+ “Day of Silence,” documents show according to reports obtained by The Daily Signal.

Campus Middle School is part of the Cherry Creek School District, which serves over 53,000 students in 67 buildings in Greenwood Village.

A Day of Silence launched by LGBTQ+ activists calls on participants to remain silent for a day “in solidarity” with those who activists claim are “bullied,” “marginalized,” and “harassed.” “ because they are gay, bisexual, non-binary. Transgender or any other sexual expression that has become fashionable in the last decade.

On April 12, a week before the celebration, Campus Middle School administrators told staff that the entire school would participate in the solidarity event sponsored by the school's LGBTQ+ extracurricular group, the Campus Spectrum Club.

Spectrum Club advisers urged teachers to allow students not to speak in class unless absolutely necessary. Parents were not notified at all.

On April 15, Barry Sterling — described on the Cherry Creek Public Schools website as an instructional coach, yearbook advisor and Spectrum advisor — sent an email instructing Campus Middle School teachers to teach students during a daily ” Counseling Phase” on April 18 to show a video minutes in which students meet with a school counselor or supervisor.

In the video, a cappella group Pentatonix sings John Lennon's song “Imagine,” while slides encourage students to participate in the Day of Silence and purchase Spectrum buttons to show their support.

Although the video shown to students includes a call for “solidarity” with those who are “bullied and harassed” because of their race and religion, there is little evidence that a day of silence for “marginalized” people has ever been observed Except for those who identify as LGBTQ+.

The Campus Middle School videos, emails and slides were provided to The Daily Signal by the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, a parent rights watchdog organization.

The documents were compiled by local teachers and parents and confirmed through Colorado Open Records Act requests, said Lori Gimelshteyn, president of the parent group.

Although the Cherry Creek School District has neither confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the documents and videos shared with The Daily Signal, a district representative confirmed that parents were not informed of Campus Middle School's observance of the LGBTQ+ Day of Silence.

“I believe that schools and parents should work together to educate their children,” Campus Middle School parent Karl Dierenbach told The Daily Signal. “When the Campus Middle School hides activism like the Day of Silence from parents, it weakens trust in the school. Why shouldn't they tell us about it so we can discuss it with our children? What else are they not telling us?”

The Cherry Creek School District is one of hundreds of public school districts across the United States that have been criticized by parents in recent years for misleading or concealing political, racial and sexual policies and activities.

The Daily Signal has reported on school districts in more than a dozen states that concealed, obscured or lied about liberal activist policies and taxpayer-funded curricula.

Parents Defending Education, an education watchdog group, reported that Cherry Creek High School issued a newsletter to teachers in February urging them to “dismantle systems of oppression.”

According to a poster obtained by The Daily Signal from the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, Campus Middle School hosted a series of staff development sessions from April 9 to May 7 titled “Transforming Classrooms into LGBTQ+ Affirming Spaces.”

The school district did not respond to The Daily Signal's question about the authenticity of the poster at the time of publication.

Gimelshteyn told The Daily Signal that she believes “cloak and dagger” incidents like these are responsible for the “skyrocketing” increase in membership in her Colorado Parent Advocacy Network.

The growing interest in parental rights comes as “parents are discovering the dishonesty that lurks in Colorado schools,” she said.