To those “perplexed” by the parent rights movement: As the local chapter chair of Moms For Liberty Honolulu County, I am very aware that a new ideology has transformed our education system. This is not another story of Hawaii having education problems; this is a federally funded shift into social and emotional “competencies.” Complete with data tracking surveys given to our children.

One silver lining that came out of COVID-19 lockdowns was that parents were able to draw back the curtain on education and peer into the computer screens of their kids at home. Parents were shocked. They began to ask questions, get more involved, attend school board meetings — this is now called the parent rights movement. It is all about the keiki.

Parent power comes from unexpected places. It is bigger than politics. In Deerfield, Mich., hundreds of Muslim men surprised the school board, filling up a meeting hall alongside parents standing together on behalf of the children.

The National Center for Educational Statistics in October showed half of fourth- and eighth-graders were below proficiency levels in reading and math across the nation. This multiyear failure began before COVID. What caused this fail?

It has been years in the making inside the colleges of education across America where teachers and administrators are trained using the critical education method of Paulo Freire, an influential Marxist who believed that education literacy meant political literacy and students should be “educated” to become activists for social change.

Teachers are exposed to this for years. By the time they come on the job market it is almost a religion for them. They believe they need to denormalize society, including ideas about sex and gender and family. This is why we see so much emphasis on teaching gender, sex and trans ideas to very young children.

Unfortunately that belief means exposing younger children, even in kindergarten to third grade, to books and lessons putting ideas of sex and gender into their young minds before they are mature enough.

State Rep. Diamond Garcia is introducing a bill in Hawaii’s Legislature that would keep sexual and gender content out of kindergarten to Grade 3 when young brains cannot comprehend abstract ideas and can become anxious.

If a school finds a gender-dysphoric child in grades K-3 (0.07% is the average), it has the means to help that child one on one and not expose the entire K-3 student body to sex and gender.

We do the same thing for movies. We don’t expose our young ones to movies with highly sexualized content for a reason. It is called common sense.

Across the nation and even here in Hawaii, schools are calling themselves safe places and hiding pronoun name changes and social gender affirmation from parents in a misguided idea of empathy.

The strongest barrier against societal breakdown is family. The love and stability around family. No matter if there are two moms or multiple tutus, uncles or aunties — it is a family. The family members impart their morals and beliefs and culture to their keiki.

Hawaii has one school board and one school district. The board members are appointed by the governor. The public and parents have not been able to vote on board members since 2010 when Hawaii lost the elected school board.

In 2023 we have a new generation of concerned parents who are aware that something is wrong inside the schools and communicate with each other on social media.

Hawaii needs to get an elected school board put back on the ballot. For the children.

Cynthia Bartlett is chair of Moms for Liberty Honolulu County Chapter.