Jefferson County Public School teachers helped students organize a protest of SB 150 at the State Capitol on March 29th, according to emails obtained by Kentucky Today. SB 150 protects Kentucky school kids from controversial LGBT indoctrination in K-5 public school classrooms, makes clear that bathroom and locker room policy corresponds to biological sex, and prohibits gender transitions of minors.

Two teachers, one from Pleasure Ridge Park High School and one from Atherton High School, coordinated the event, and provided sack lunches, arranged transportation, and garnered security. A professor from Jefferson County Technical & Community College helped as well. These teachers also connected students with Democratic lawmakers and attempted to have students meet with Gov. Beshear. 

Michael Kluemper, a Japanese teacher at Atherton High School, summarized the purpose of the trip in an email: “Tomorrow around 50 Atherton students and a few hundred others will be taking a field trip to Frankfort to talk to and rally before State Senators and Representatives that trans kids deserve rights and protections and should not be subjected to beratement, violence, or the simple insult of calling them a name or by a pronoun that they find derogatory. We all deserve respect, ALL of us. Some of us might not understand what makes a trans person trans, the struggles they go through, the difficulties, ridicules, hatefulness that they often have to endure.”

Organizing political protests is not a role teachers should play, especially teachers who are paid by Kentucky tax dollars. Parental consent for controversial activity should be required, which was not respected, and underscores the  need for SB 150 in the first place.