An elite private school in New York City is facing massive backlash from parents for showing first graders sex education videos. The Dalton School administration received complaints from furious parents who got wind of the said videos containing information about masturbation being taught by the school’s health and wellness educator Justine Ang Fonte.
The posh $55,000 per year school was bombarded with complaints but had assured the parents that they simply “misinterpreted” the lessons their kids’ teacher was trying to impart. The health and wellness teacher showed the video last fall that was taken from the free sex education series for children called AMAZE.
Fonte told parents that she does not use the word “masturbation” in class. The New York Post reported that in the cartoon video, a little boy asks: “Hey, how come sometimes my penis gets big sometimes and points in the air?”
“That's called an erection,” an animated adult woman responds.
The boy then says: “Sometimes I touch my penis because it feels good.”'
In another part of the video, a little girl asks: “Sometimes, when I'm in my bath or when Mom puts me to bed, I like to touch my vulva too.”
An adult cartoon character tells the girl: “You have a clitoris there, Kayla, that probably feels good to touch the same way Keith's penis feels good when he touches it.”
The classes are said to also include lessons on gender identity and consent, where children are instructed that no other person, including their parents and grandparents should touch them without asking permission.
Fonte, who has become quite controversial due to her “explicit” lessons also came under fire last month when she led a “porn literacy workshop" at another elite prep school. After the exposé last week on the porn class, Dalton came under attack with more complaints from parents about Fonte’s curriculum.
The controversial sex education video series was provided to the school by hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Foundation. Ackman’s ex-wife stands as one of the board of trustees which landed the school a $450,000 grant that also funds Fonte’s lessons.
The series is created through a partnership between the Washington DC based nonprofit Advocates for Youth and the organizations Answer and Youth Tech Health. The channel's videos, which can be seen on YouTube, have since been viewed 619,938 times. According to The Post, parents who chose to remain anonymous said that the video has since been “quietly removed from the curriculum.”
