LAS VEGAS – Because a Nevada school district has so badly fumbled its attempt to reform its sex education curriculum, a Las Vegas mother took it upon herself to form a grassroots group devoted to protecting parental rights.

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The ACLU has warned the Clark County School District they have to come up with a new sexual education curriculum that will comply with state law. Last year the Nevada Legislature introduced a controversial bill, AB 230, underwritten by Planned Parenthood that would have required a more comprehensive sex-education program.

It narrowly failed by one vote.

Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky, writing in a letter to parents, said he knew the subject would come up again in the 2015 legislative session and the district “wanted to respond to gaps in our curriculum at a local level rather than have them mandated by the state.”

The district decided to hold a series of by-invitation-only forums to get parental input.

Erin Phillips, who has two children in school and two that are still too young to attend, was one of those invited by her board member to attend a forum. It turns out she was the only parent who showed up from her district, although her board representative said she had invited 17.

At the meeting, proposed guidelines from the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) were introduced. The forum was conducted by a SIECUS representative.  Planned Parenthood reps were also there and Phillips says “that raised a red flag” for her.

She was shocked at the content of the explicit guidelines that included graphic, including teaching kindergartners about masturbation.

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She tells EAGnews that’s the thing that got her and many other parents “fired up,” which was described as “secret touching” of one’s genitals that makes them feel good. Some parents testifying before members of the school board were so upset they were in tears.

In the same letter, Skorkowsky apologized: “We made a misjudgment when we put out a document in these community forums from [SIECUS]… Our staff chose the SIECUS document because it is one of the few nationally recognized ‘comprehensive’ sex education documents.”

The guidelines have been withdrawn and the district is starting over with a survey of parents that will be used to make recommendations for legislation to be introduced in the upcoming session. Nonetheless, the district’s public trust with the community was broken.

Phillips had testified against AB 230, which, among other things, would have allowed the schools to use Planned Parenthood employees to come into the schools to teach sex-ed classes. And parents would have had to opt their children out of sex-ed instead of opting them in. The board still wants some form of AB 230 reintroduced in the next session.

Phillips told EAGnews, “I talked to some friends who also testified against the AB 230 bill and I knew they were concerned with ‘sexification’ issues and were involved with some legislative issues in Nevada. And it was me and three other ladies who basically started the group Power2Parent (P2P).”

The response has been immediate and gratifying. More than 600 parents joined P2P within days and the number is growing.

Part of her wanting to do this, Phillips said, was she realized that parents were really unaware of what was taking place, as evidenced by the lack of attendance at the forums. She also says the public hearings on AB 230 were scheduled for 3:00 in the afternoon, when many parents are picking their kids up from school, in order to push the bill through as quietly as possible.

“I think people, in the beginning,” she says, “when it was explained to them what was happening, they really couldn’t believe it,” thinking the school district would not do that to them.

Phillips says the group is concerned not just about the issue of comprehensive sex education, but parental rights in general, because of outside groups that continue to chip away at them, groups that don’t even have children in the CCSD. The P2P mission statement is, To inform, organize and mobilize community members for the protection of fundamental parental rights.

Phillips says more than 1,000 have signed the following petition posted on their website’s home page:

* Sex-education is for the teaching of human reproduction and STI’s. It is NOT to include sexual behaviors, in order to protect the rights of parents and the individual.
* Sex Education should NOT be taught below 5th Grade.
* Sex Education should NOT be “comprehensive sexuality” which teaches sexual behaviors. Sex Education should be age appropriate and fact based.
* We DO want policy to protect and respect parental rights and involvement. Keep OPT IN as our choice so parents know when and what is being taught.
* We DO want safety for individuals while respecting different values and cultures.
* We do want all Sex-education materials, and or including videos and written material, with on-line parental access.

One of the P2P’s immediate concerns is the upcoming legislative session where four or five bills will be introduced to push comprehensive sex education into the public schools in opposition to what P2P is advocating. However, Phillips says most of the incumbent Democrats were defeated in the midterms in Nevada. “…so it will be interesting to see how far they get now especially with what our group has done to bring this issue to light.” She says they are looking forward to working with supportive legislators to hopefully introduce their own bills.

After the sexual education issue is settled, Phillips says the group will continue advocating for parental rights and mobilize parents when issues arise. “It’s difficult being a parent and staying abreast of all the things that are happening,” she says.

The group created a promotional video to raise awareness: