A South Bend, Indiana teacher is being punished this week after inviting a pro-life organization to give a presentation to a high school health class.
The South Bend Tribune reports district leaders placed the Clay High School teacher on administrative leave because they said the presentation by Right to Life Michiana on Tuesday violated school policies. The school district did not release the teacher’s name.
A district spokesperson said teachers are required to seek approval from the principal if they want outside speakers to come into the classroom. According to the district, school policy also requires that parents be notified in advance and sign permission slips.
School officials said the teacher did not do either.
It appears that school leaders learned about the presentation after Right to Life Michiana posted about it on Facebook, and local residents saw the post and got upset.
Jackie Appleman, executive director of Right to Life Michiana, told the local newspaper that they were not informed about the school policies when they gave the presentation.
“We just talked about the medical and scientific facts of fetal development and what the abortion procedure actually looks like,” Appleman said.
She said they often give presentations to students at churches and Catholic schools, and their presentation at Clay High School promoted facts and resources, not religious views. Photos from the presentation posted on Facebook show images of developing babies in the womb.
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The problems that school officials raised was with authorization, not the actual presentation. Superintendent Todd Cummings said they are conducting an investigation.
“We want to reassure our students, families, and community that we are taking this matter seriously and are grateful it was brought to our attention,” Cummings said in a statement. “While we are committed to addressing the health and safety needs of all of our students, policies, protocols, multiple perspectives, and parent notifications need to be followed to ensure the continued trust of our families.”
Both pro-life and pro-abortion groups give presentations in public and private schools across the country. Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion chain in the U.S., brags that it is “the single largest provider of sex education in the United States.”
Numerous news reports in recent years have aired parents’ complaints about not being informed that Planned Parenthood would be giving presentations to their students. Concerned parents in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, California, Washington state, New York, North Carolina and other parts of the country have protested Planned Parenthood’s involvement in their students’ education in the past several years.
In one recent case, parents at a Pennsylvania school said a Planned Parenthood partner group taught seventh-grade students graphic details about oral sex during a science class.
Among its worst teaching points, Planned Parenthood tells children that promiscuity is ok. “There’s nothing bad or unhealthy about having a big number of sexual partners,” it tells students on its Tumbler page.
Planned Parenthood’s booklet for HIV-positive youth, “Healthy, Happy and Hot,” tells young people that it is their “human right” to not tell their sexual partner that they have HIV. And its middle school sex education curriculum teaches children as young as 12 “how to perform oral and anal sex.”
ACTION ALERT: Contact the South Bend school district to support the teacher.
