Math and Science Academy offers customized gender transition support to students

A math and science boarding academy in Illinois implemented a plan last school year that encouraged staff at the school to come up with “personalized” gender “support” plans for students who identify as transgender, according to documents shared with The Daily Wire.

The Illinois Math and Science Academy, a woke public boarding school in Aurora for grades 10-12, rolled out a “Gender Support Process and Plan” last school year that details how the school can support students’ “social transition” while they are at school and away from their parents, according to documents and emails obtained by Parents Defending Education. The plan was created by the school’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office and school administrators.

“The Gender Support Plan is a resource for transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive students, to guide IMSA in supporting their needs, as well as assisting their social transition while at school,” a copy of the plan obtained by Parents Defending Education says. “This may include, but not limited to the following: access to restrooms, locker room accessibility, affirmation of student’s chosen name and pronouns, disclosure of students identity as requested by student, confidentiality of gender identity as requested by student, social-emotional supports, staff training, and other supports expressed by the student.”

School Chief Public Affairs and Development Officer Tami Armstrong told The Daily Wire that the plan was rolled out in October 2022 and is still “under development” and that it “has not been fully implemented due to resource limitations.”

“The plan is designed to provide guidance and resources for faculty and staff to support the needs of transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive students,” Armstrong said. “Support is intended to be personalized based on the specific needs of each student within IMSA’s capacity.”

The plan says that it was influenced by Gender Spectrum, Lurie Children’s Hospital, and Chicago Public School policies. Previous reporting indicated that Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago has worked to push radical gender theory at schools.

The support plan also said that parents should be left in the dark about the gender that their child identified as if the child did not want them to know.

“School staff shall not disclose information that may reveal a student’s Chosen Name, Gender Identity, and Pronouns to others,” the plan said. “Therefore, given the sensitive nature of the information, when speaking with parents, guardians, other staff members, or third parties, school staff should not disclose a student’s Chosen Name, Gender Identity, and Pronouns, or other confidential information pertaining to the student’s transgender or gender nonconforming identity without the student’s permission, unless authorized to do so by IMSA’s Law Department.”

Part of the plan included a form filled out about the student that indicated whether a guardian was aware and “SUPPORTIVE” of a student’s “gender identity.”

If the guardian was in the dark, staff were asked to think about how to handle phone calls and notes to home in light of that information.

According to Armstrong, “a student’s legal name, preferred name, and personal pronouns” are all listed in the school system, which parents and guardians can access.

The plan says that students are able to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the gender that they identify as. Emails obtained by Parents Defending Education indicated that staff had also discussed “gender inclusive living,” but that policy hadn’t yet been developed. Armstrong told The Daily Wire that students were housed by the sex on their birth certificate.

The emails obtained by PDE show conflict among staff at the school after one faculty member emailed the DEI director in February 2023 complaining about not getting access to the Gender Support plan and asking that DEI stays “top of mind across the institution, especially at the cabinet level.”

In response, the DEI officer responded: “Please stop blaming me for things, this work began before you!”

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The school has instituted a vast DEI program that emphasizes racial and sexual identity, which includes requiring seniors to attend a three-hour training session called the “Gender and Sexual Orientation Diversity Education Workshop.”

“The goal of this program is to increase the awareness, knowledge, and skills for individuals and address the challenges that exist when one wants to advocate for their LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual)+ peers, family members, friends, and for themselves,” the course description says.

As part of the workshop, staff use the “Gingerbread Person,” from “ItsPronouncedMetrosexual.com” to teach students about “gender identity” and “gender expression.”

Elsewhere in the curriculum, resources from the Gay Alliance are used to teach kids about “being respectful to transgender people.” The resources include claims that surgeries to remove healthy body parts, such as mastectomies on females who identify as males, are not cosmetic, but necessary.

“The changes I make to my body are not cosmetic, but rather reconstructive. Having a body I am comfortable with is vital to my health,” one part of the curriculum says, while another asserts, “If I am a transman getting top surgery, then I am not ‘getting my breasts removed.’ I am having chest reconstruction.

Erika Sanzi, of Parents Defending Education, ripped into the school for its promotion of gender ideology.

“It’s a shame that a school with the words math and science in its name has been totally captured by gender ideology but these emails and documents leave no doubt that is the case,” she said. “There is no justification for a school to be deliberately hiding information from parents or compelling student speech.”

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