Minnesota Student Says Teacher Told Her to Hide ‘Equity Survey’ Questions From Parents

A classroom in a file photo. Wokandapix/Pexels

A Sartell-St. Stephen School District student is speaking out after the school required grade-school children to take an equity survey.

Some students didn’t understand some of the surveys questions, but were told by a teacher they couldn’t repeat the survey questions to their parents, according to a video uploaded by Alphanews.

The survey asked questions that some students didn’t understand. Even after hearing an explanation from their teacher, some still couldn’t comprehend the survey questions.

But a teacher told the students they couldn’t ask their parents for help, according to student Haylee Yasgar.

“My teacher said that I could not skip any questions even when I didn’t understand them. One question asked us what gender we identify with. I was very confused along with a lot of other classmates,” Yasgar said during Monday night’s meeting.

She said students were told they could not “repeat any of the questions to our parents.”

The school district hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment. It’s unclear what value a survey holds if respondents don’t understand the questions.

“Being asked to hide this from my mom made me very uncomfortable, like I was doing something wrong,” she told the school board.

The equity survey is part of a reckoning of how school systems nationwide should teach issues related not only to sexuality but as well as race in a state where George Floyd died in police custody last year.

Now that the city settled a lawsuit for $27 million and former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for third-degree murder and manslaughter, the question now remains how school systems should explain similar events to children.