Parents express concerns over questions about sexual identity in a survey taken by Sierra Ridge Middle School students.
POLLOCK PINES, Calif. — There are concerns in the Pollock Pines Elementary School District after students took the California Healthy Kids Survey. The statewide survey comes from the California Department of Education and claims to be an anonymous and confidential questionnaire about school climate and wellness.
Students at Sierra Ridge Middle School took the survey this week and some parents are now upset with the questions their students were asked.
“I was almost about to take my phone out (to) take pictures and text my parents and I’m the type to never do anything like that,” said Irie Hedayat-Griffin.
Wednesday was an interesting day for the 7th grader at Sierra Ridge.
“If a teacher gives you something, you’ve got to do it,” said Irie.
She took the survey which – according to the district – is meant to provide information on school climate and culture and is taken in more than 5,000 districts across California. The survey asks everything about whether the student feels safe, smoking habits, alcohol and drug use, and if they’re eating breakfast.
“We didn’t think anything of it because it said, ‘healthy kids,’ we thought it was going to be about snacks or exercise,” said her stepmom, Nicholle Gaton.
The district says schoolwide communication was sent out to parents. According to the notification, consent was required for 5th and 6th grade students. Consent is not required for 7th and 8th grade students, but parents could opt their child out. A link to the survey was also available.
Irie’s parents admit they didn’t go through the entire survey but believe they should’ve received better communication about it.
“The inappropriate questions were well well well into the survey, so many parents including us took most of the survey like, ‘okay, this is general stuff, not a problem,’” said her father, Ken Griffin.
“I thought that the questions were a bit too personal,” said Irie.
The questions dealt with subject matter her parents thought was inappropriate.
“Are we (referring to the student) trans? Are we gay,” said Griffin.
ABC10 accessed the survey, which includes a multiple-choice question on sexual identity.
“I talked with several parents who also went through the link and didn’t see most of the questions that we were talking about,” said Gaton. “We even screenshotted when they looked through the survey, they didn’t see any of these questions so there is a chance that the one for the parents and the ones the kids actually took were different.”
The district told ABC10 there’s only one version of the survey for 5th graders and another for 6-8th graders.
The superintendent told ABC10 they plan to meet with parents and address concerns, including sharing the survey results. Moving forward they plan to be more specific about what’s in the survey and talk about it on back-to-school night.
ABC10 also reached out to the California Department of Education for more clarity since the survey is given to 1.3 million students but did not hear back. You can read more about the survey on the California Department of Education website HERE.
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