Wisconsin parents are being described by their school district as “not entitled to know” if their children are changing identities because that is “knowledge that must be earned” according to leaked training documents.

Staff development sessions for teachers in the Eau Claire Area School District in central Wisconsin “focused on safe spaces, gender identity, microaggressions, and oppression” reported the website Defendinged.org.

One of the slides in the training session reads, “Remember, parents are not entitled to know their kids’ identities. That knowledge must be earned. Teachers are often straddling this complex situation. In ECASD, our priority is supporting the student.”

The group Parents Defending Education obtained “additional material from concerned community members that the school district used in training teachers.” The training video host praised states that mandate schools teach LGBTQ in classrooms beginning in kindergarten, and condemned the states that don’t.

One of the trainers said parents who disagree with their kids about gender identity issues are guilty of “abuse.” The trainer said, “we understand and acknowledge that teachers are often put in terrible positions caught between parents and their students. But much like we wouldn’t act as stand-ins for abuse in other circumstances, we cannot let parents’ rejection of their children guide teachers’ reactions and actions and advocacy for our students.”

The trainers also encouraged the teachers to be activists: “to vote, to demonstrate, to protest.” National Review notes “the fight over teacher training in Eau Claire is the latest skirmish in the national debate over the role of schools in promoting activism, and teaching ‘woke’ concepts about race, gender, and sex.”

In response to the instruction, three local school board candidates, Nicole Everson, Corey Cronrath, and Melissa Winter, issued a joint statement, saying they were “appalled” and “dismayed that current school district leadership would pressure teachers into breaking a social contract that we all know and understand – that parents and guardians hold primary responsibility for the welfare and care of their children.”

In a statement to Empower Wisconsin, superintendent Michael Johnson offered no such apology, and said the district “prides itself on being a school district that makes all students feel welcome and safe in our schools.”