CA Charter School Touts ‘Proud Queer Asian-Latinx Educator’ Teaching ‘Complexities of Intersectionality’ to 5-Year-Olds

A child helps to wave a huge rainbow flag during the Gay Pride parade on September 17, 201
ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP via Getty Images

KIPP Public Schools, a charter school operator in California, announced on Thursday that one of its teachers identifies as a “proud queer Asian-Latinx educator,” and “often teaches his 5-year-olds about the complexities of intersectionality.”

“Kris Sanchez, a teacher at @kippsocal, identifies as a ‘proud queer Asian-Latinx educator’ and often teaches his 5-year-olds about the complexities of intersectionality,” tweeted KIPP Public Schools, a network of 270 public charter schools with more than 160,000 students, according to its website.

Included in the tweet was a link to a blog post by Kris Sanchez, a teacher at KIPP Comienza Community Prep, Los Angeles, California, who describes himself as “a zesty Kindergarten teacher” and “a proud queer Asian-Latinx educator.”

Sanchez explained how he reads the book, A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo — a fictional book about former Vice pPresident Mike Pence’s pet rabbit being gay — to his students, and how he has conversations with the 5-year-olds about how “boy bunnies can marry other boy bunnies.”

When finished reading the book, Sanchez said he asks students “questions that I believed were open-ended enough to spark great discussion and provide not only a window into this identity but a mirror into their own.”

The kindergarten teacher said he asked the students questions like “How is the family in the book the same as your family?” and “Do you know anyone else who is in a loving relationship like the boy bunnies in this book?”

“I couldn’t help but have a beaming smile as I continued to hear one Kindergartener after another make connections to the two boy bunnies in love with one another,” Sanchez wrote.

The teacher concluded his blog by stating that “talking about loving relationships between adults is in fact, highly developmentally appropriate.”

“Not only that, it is highly validating for those students who may grow up to hold these identities in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, questioning/queer, intersex, agender/asexual/ally, and other non heterosexual community (LGBTQIA+),” he added.

This admission by Sanchez and KIPP Public Schools in California comes as other states seek to pass anti-grooming laws in academia.

In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law the Parental Rights in Education bill, which prohibits teachers from discussing sexuality and transgender ideology to children in kindergarten through third grade.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.