CRT Survey Distributed to Colorado Middle School Students

by Renee Parsons

As the recent school board elections concluded nationally, Colorado experienced a significant increase in parental school board participation across the state with one notable exception being the 9R School District in the southwest corner of the State.    Always a major factor was the Durango Herald which has abandoned any pretense of being a defender of the First Amendment and a local Democratic party machine which has assumed the ideological blindfolds of being in lockstep with the national Democrats now operating as cultural Marxists.

As incumbent 9R Democrats denied any existence of CRT (Critical Race Theory), the thirteen-page 2021 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey  was being distributed to 9R’s middle school students while exposing alarmingly inappropriate topics to 10 – 14 year olds (aka sixth to eighth graders).  A creation of the Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE), a version of the Colorado Survey recently surfaced in Virginia and is now recognized as a nationally distributed marketing tool funded by the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) as it institutionalizes a school district’s right to challenge a parent’s natural, God-given authority over its own children. 

The survey presents issues that are not-age appropriate for middle school students who are neither emotionally nor intellectually mature or experienced in questionnaires to understand the implications of the questions and their answers.  They are being quizzed as to their knowledge and/or familiarity with sexual, transgender, violence and suicide issues in such a way that suggests certain answers are more ‘cool’ than those with no experience just as it is easily imagined that an impressionable student may exaggerate their answers to feel more ‘grown up’ or impress their peers.  

 In addition, the answer to numerous questions may be interpreted as a reflection on whether a parent is disengaged, inadequate or not providing sufficient parental attention to the student’s needs and whether, therefore, is qualified to continue in a parental role.   Having originally been introduced as a theory of class conflict, socialism has never been successful in America where class consciousness is replaced by the country’s Declaration of Independence and the ability of its citizens to improve its standard of living.  In response, the Marxists’ amended its US agenda to identify social unrest and race as their defining issues while today openly embracing the nuts and bolts of CRT  as a ‘soft sell’ using the acceptable mantras of ‘equity’ (not to be confused with equality) and “diversity and inclusion.”  Shrewdly sifting CRT attention on indoctrinating the younger generation would accomplish the Marxist goal of destroying the American family unit as ultimately introducing a Socialist world that would eliminate Martin Luther King’s Dream, end Constitutional privileges as well as  private property rights, seize land and wealth with redistribution along racial lines.  

While the Survey claims to be ‘voluntary’ and ‘completely anonymous,” non-participating students must ‘opt out’ in order to avoid participation.   The odds of voluntarily being singled out and removed as the remainder of the class take the Survey together may subject the non-participant to more unnecessary peer pressure than they are willing to experience.  

It is of special interest that a participating school district has little choice but to participate or lose millions of dollars that the District would otherwise receive from the State and that the School District Administration has no real option to replace this objectionable Survey with one that is less invasive and provocative even though the CDPHE website declares that “school districts can modify the survey to meet the needs of their community.”  It is also of interest to note that a ‘censored’ version of the Survey exists which excludes two sections devoted to sexual consent and sexual health, although it is unknown why the 9R school district received the non-censored version.    

 While there are more egregious, objectionable questions than can be addressed in this article, here are just a handful that has sent many parents into a raging tizzy while the ‘woke’ Democrats persist in denying that the Survey represents those values and ideology as identified by CRT.  

4.  Some people describe themselves as transgender when their sex at birth does not match the way they think or feel about their gender.  Are you transgender?

7.  What is the highest level of schooling your mother completed? 

13.  Have you ever carried a weapon, such as gun, knife or club?

23.  Have you ever been physically forced to have sexual intercourse when you did not want to?

34.  Have you ever seriously thought about killing yourself?

36.  Have you ever tried to kill yourself? 

51.  How old were you when you had your first drink of alcohol other than a few sips?

71.  How old were you when you had sexual intercourse for the first time?

85.  During the past thirty days, where did you usually sleep?

86.  If you wanted to get a handgun, how easy would it be for you to get one? 

98.  During the Covid 19 pandemic, how often did a parent or other adult in your home hit, beat, kick  or physically hurt you in any way?

97.  During the Covid 19 pandemic, how often did a parent or other adult in your home swear at you, insult you, or put you down?      

In the interests of space, the answers to each question has been deleted.  If however, you need to read the answers to each question, some of which are as objectionable and provocative as the question itself, you may do so with this link.    It is a good guess that it would be a fascinating study of human relations to inquire whether any of the  9R School Board Members have ever read the entire thirteen page Survey?   Or to request a School Board member  to justify the purpose of the Survey, to identify whether they support the Survey and provide the public with their reaction  to the Survey’s usefulness in educating its vulnerable middle school age students. 

Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found at reneedove3@yahoo.com.