Posted on 10/26/2022 8:19:38 PM PDT by NoLibZone
The camp’s director said misinformation about his counselors and transphobia led to the Culver School District pulling its students Outdoor School is a rite of passage for many Oregon students, when pre-teen students across the state spend multiple days in the wilderness learning about the outdoors.
The sixth grade students of Culver Schools, a small district in rural Central Oregon, were scheduled for a three-day, two-night stay at Camp Tamarack in nearby Sisters starting Oct. 17. It didn’t go according to plan.
Several hours into the trip, the school bus returned, loaded up all the students and their belongings, and took them back to Culver. The reason: District officials learned nonbinary counselors would be sharing cabins with the students, according to letters sent to parents later that day.
Interviews with the district and emails from Oct. 18 show school officials took little deliberation before pulling students from the camp. Much of the district’s concerns were based on misinformation about Camp Tamarack and its nonbinary counselors, and the actions could potentially cost the district thousands of dollars in state funding.
Superintendent Stefanie Garber later wrote to parents, saying some students had expressed discomfort with staying in a cabin with a nonbinary person, particularly with dressing and showering in front of the high school-aged counselors.
She said she heard about the concerns from Culver Middle School Principal Brad Kudlac, who himself had heard it from teachers present at the camp.
“We stand for the emotional, physical and mental safety of the kids, and we stand for clear open communication,” Garber said to OPB. “So we had to err on the side of caution.”
Garber did not know how many students expressed discomfort or if they had actually requested they be taken home. She said that she was in the middle of conducting job interviews and took only around 15 minutes before deciding to send a bus, which was at another school district for a sporting event, back to Camp Tamarack.
‘There were tears’
Camp Tamarack Executive Director Charlie Anderson said that Garber and the district operated on incorrect information about the camp. He said each cabin has a private changing room, which students were made aware of, and that students do not shower during Outdoor School and would therefore never have been in a shower with a counselor.
He said the camp had no idea students were uncomfortable or that they were going home until the buses arrived. Students, he said, seemed upset when they found out.
“There was a lot of confusion — there were tears,” Anderson said. “When that was being taken away from them, there was sadness felt everywhere.”
Garber said the district could have done better in communicating with the camp, but also told parents she wished Camp Tamarack had informed her about the presence of nonbinary counselors. Anderson disagreed and said doing so would’ve been discriminatory and violated state law.
Culver’s withdrawal from Outdoor School comes as queer people across the country, especially those who are transgender and nonbinary, have faced increasing attacks from conservatives who claim these LGBTQ people are either “groomers” or pedophiles. Various state legislatures have considered and even passed laws limiting discussion of or exposure to LGBTQ topics around children.
Groomer counselors.
Good move by the school district.
The Mama Grizzlies are awakening....
HOW did the students know counselors were “non-binary? Because the weirdos make EVERYTHING about sex and gender!!!!
Garber did not know how many students expressed discomfort or if they had actually requested they be taken home.
For years, it has only taken ONE snowflake to complain about feeling uncomfortable about something for it to be shut down. Now NPR needs to know NOW MANY complained. That is totally inconsistent with and opposite the way the GD liberals treat conservatives. If ONE complainant is sufficient to shut down some conservative thing, then ONE complainant ought to be sufficient to shut down liberal perversion.
Students are not taught HOW to think, they are taught WHAT to think. I have been all around Oregon and it is not as liberal as you would think, just in downtown Portland.
It has been "mail in only" for decades and only leftists win elections
these perverts should be locked up!
This intentional liberal obfuscation by use of the made-up word “nonbinary” drives me nuts. What’s wrong with good old fashioned “pervert” or “weirdo” or “creep”?
Yep. I’m guessing, but there were probably a lot of “tells”: “pride” shirts, “pride” flags on their backpacks, green hair, nose rings, lesbian shaved heads or crewcuts — you name it, any in-your-face crap that they can pull.
[[No mention of how they managed to get pervert counselors hired.]]
They probably learned how from the boy scouts of america
Good for the school!
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High-Schoolers in the positions of counselors, in the prime of their, “Must fit in” moments of their lives while thinking they know it all, will definitely think they’re helping younger middle schoolers with their personal problems by giving advice. It WILL happen.
It’s funny how free speech and the consequences thereof are only supposed to work in one direction, huh?
Or….”PRE-verts”
OK that wasn’t right at all. What kind of school waits until the kids are on their way to notify the parents what will be going on as far as bunking????
Yeah...I thought that also, but sheesh...kids need to make fun of them...
Exactly. The counselors were picked because they wanted to groom the kids.
It's not either/or.
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