Maine School Administrative District (MSAD) 54, encompassing Skowhegan and surrounding towns, held an event for Maine’s “Seventh Annual Day of Welcome” on Friday, which included discussions on “male gender stereotypes” and “kids’ assumptions of gender roles.”
An employee of the Margaret Chase Smith Community School posted an image of an email sent by a teacher, Mary Pono, to the school’s staff announcing their Day of Welcome event.
The image the employee posted, stating that it was what students would be learning on Friday, cut off part of the email, so The Maine Wire reached out, asking her for additional information.
Instead of responding, the employee deleted the Facebook post.
According to the email, similar events were held at schools across the state and were sponsored by the Maine Office of the Attorney General’s (AG) Civil Rights Teams Project (CRTP), which encourages children as young as elementary school to discuss race, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
The email shows that the AG’s office helps MCSCS in “Our work of engaging the school community in thinking and talking about issues related to race and skin color, national origin and ancestry, disabilities, gender (including gender identity and expression), and sexual orientation.”
In the email, Pono asks teachers to take time to talk to their students about the event and provides a list of videos that can be shown to students, as well as questions to ask them. Based on the parts of the email that are visible, the videos appear intended to be shown to children.
“Below you will find some video links and a list of questions that can be used during mo… meeting or as a writing prompt,” says the email.
The email includes what appear to be links to videos designated by the age group of children who should see them.
Videos include:
- Kids Discuss Male Gender Stereotypes (Grades 3-5)
- A Class that Turned Around Kids Assumptions of Gender Roles (All Grades)
- Skicin in You (“Skicin” Passamaquoddy Word for Native Person) (Grades 3-5)
- End the r-word (All Grades)
- We Are America (Grades 4-5)
The videos do not appear to be publicly accessible on the CRTP’s website.
The email also included a list of questions to ask children.
- What do you think it means to truly welcome everyone?
- WHy do you think the Day of Welcome is specific in mentioning race and skin color, national…. religion disabilities, gender (including gender identity and expression), and sexual orientation…. saying “We Welcome Everyone?”
- What is one thing you can do every day to be welcoming to each person at MCSCS?
- What makes you feel welcome in our school community?
- Have you ever felt like you weren’t included in something? How did that make you feel?
- Tell about a time you saw someone being welcoming to someone else.
The Maine Wire reached out to the AG’s office, asking how many schools participated in the Annual Day of Welcome and whether they were all issued the same guidelines, but they did not immediately respond.
A 2023 issue of The Torch, the CRTP newsletter, shows that in 2022, numerous schools participated in the event, which included a variety of left-wing imagery, including pride flags, hung across the schools.
Until 2023, Brandon Baldwin, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’s husband, served as the director of the CRTP.
The Maine Wire previously reported on that program’s self-described “recruitment video,” which presents a cartoon version of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and radical gender ideology-related imagery to entice minors into joining their local Civil Rights Team.
