Plymouth Violates own Policy to Push New Sex Ed Curriculum, Parents Fight Back
Plymouth's most famous Rock might not impress, but these bold parents sure do.
Plymouth, MA, home of the famous (and famously underwhelming), Plymouth Rock, is now home to something truly impressive - parents brave enough to take a stand against indoctrination in their schools.
While the threats to the original settlers of Plymouth were disease, lack of supplies and warring tribes, Plymouth families in 2025 are facing something else entirely. The threat to these families is the sexualization of children - in this case, through a new 8th grade sex ed curriculum.
The situation in Plymouth first caught our eye when at the Plymouth Public Schools’ October 20th school committee meeting, a concerned father drew attention to the lack of transparency around the new curriculum and exposed some of the shocking material he had found when he reviewed it. A local priest also spoke up about the dangers of allowing teachers to supplant the role of parents, especially when it comes to children making sensitive decisions about sexuality and sexual activity. You can watch their comments below.
In the course of his comments, the concerned father talked about the challenges he had faced in trying to review the new curriculum. He also pointed out that the Plymouth school committee’s OWN policy states that if parents want to review sex ed materials and they don’t feel that the school has provided sufficient access, they can follow an appeal process. This process can take up to six weeks. However, the district had announced the new curriculum on October 8th, to be implemented on October 23rd. This did not allow enough time for parents to follow the district’s own appeal process, he argued, and therefore the implementation of the curriculum must be postponed.
District administration must have realized he had a point, because two days later, the principal of the Plymouth middle school where these changes were expected to roll out, sent the following email:
While this email was a positive step (though the district shouldn’t get too many kudos for following its own policies!), it raised more questions than it answered. “Over the past several months, our health education team has worked diligently, engaging in professional development, collaborating with consultants…” it said. Now wait a second - what kind of professional development had the teachers received, and who were the consultants employed to provide it?
We know that outside voices like consultants crafting curriculum and telling teachers how to do their job can be a problem, especially if they promote values that don’t align with those of the families whose children the district is responsible for educating. Was this what had happened in Plymouth? What outside voices had been active in the PPS, and what were they saying? And while we’re at it - who was funding their work?
To find out more about these consultants and the professional development provided to Plymouth teachers, Massachusetts Family Institute submitted a public records request on November 3rd. You can see the request here.
Here is what we learned when we reviewed the documents returned by the PPS.
Teachers were trained to use activist curriculum.
One thing returned in the public records request was the following slideshow, which clearly states that it is based on the Rights, Respect, Responsibility (3Rs) Curriculum. The 3Rs is a project of Advocates for Youth, a progressive activist organization that actively promotes issues like abortion access, free contraceptives on campuses, transgenderism, and more. Advocates for Youth is also a managing partner of Amaze.org, a notorious purveyor of animated sexuality cartoons with titles like Masturbation: Totally Normal and Is it Normal to Watch Porn? (spoiler alert: Amaze says yes, kids, watching porn is “normal.”).
This slideshow contains references to progressive ideologies that the presenters expected teachers to implement in their classrooms.
It also instructs teachers to access other biased, politicized resources such as Planned Parenthood.
You can download the entire slideshow here:
Training was provided by Lighthouse Wellness and Health Education Consulting, and it wasn’t cheap.
The public records request revealed that the district had received the Promoting Safe and Healthy Learning Environments: Elevating Student Voice and Well-Being Grant from DESE. Per this email from 2024, the funds from this grant were used to pay $25,000 to Lighthouse Wellness and Health Education Consulting (LWHEC) for their professional development services.
Before we go further, a word about grants. Every school committee loves grants, because they allow the district to obtain goods or services without a hit to the general budget. In a world where every district wishes they had more money to service students, grants seem like a godsend. However, the desire for budget-neutral resources frequently blinds school committee members to the programmatic impact and controversial ideologies that often come along for the free-money ride.
We didn’t go down the rabbit hole of tracking the history of this particular grant in Plymouth Public Schools (Did the school committee support it? Were they aware of the implications? Was it discussed publicly and voted on? If so, when? Did the community have a chance to weigh in?), but someone else certainly could. Plymouth parents deserve to know what grants its district is applying for, and what those grants, when received, obligate the district to do.
In this case, it appears the grant provided funding for training in DESE’s new Comprehensive Health and Physical Education framework - and that training was to be provided by DESE’s approved vendor, LWHEC. See screenshot below from the “Key Requirements” sheet for the CHPE portion of this grant below.
But that wasn’t all that was paid to LWHEC. Per our public records, it appears that the LWHEC was paid a total of $54,000 by the PPS in 2024 and 2025. There are $40,000 worth of invoices that appear to be tied directly to this grant, and another for $14,000 (for “YMHFA Training”) that may or may not be connected. Please see for yourself by downloading the supporting documents below.
So who is LWHEC, anyway, and why is this consulting firm so influential in MA public schools? There’s likely more that parents could look into there as well, but here’s a quick bit of intel worth noting for those concerned about sexualization and indoctrination in the classroom (and yes, even in gym class).
LWHEC is run by Holly Alperin and Sarah Benes, two ladies with a long list of credentials in the health and education space (though none as actual K-12 classroom teachers, at least based on their website bios). One particularly noteworthy (or should we say, red flag-worthy) credential is that Benes was the President of the Society of Health and Physical Educators (also known as SHAPE America) in 2023. While we wish that gym class was a safe space from progressive ideologies, sadly SHAPE is not an ideologically-neutral organization. On their blog they advocate for social justice in physical education, their latest Inclusive Practices in Health Education guidance recommends that teachers “Consistently include topics and gender identities that are culturally relevant and affirming to LGBTQIA+ youth,” and their annual conference has featured sessions such as “Beyond Rainbows and Pronouns: Teaching About Gender Identity in Elementary School” and “What’s Trending? Decoding Teens With Amaze’s Sex Ed Resources” (both of which list Nora Gelperin of Advocates for Youth as the presenter). In short, SHAPE is woke, and while we don’t know what Benes believes about every issue under the sun, woke organizations tend to elect woke leaders. And now, one of those leaders runs the organization that’s teaching MA teachers how to develop health curriculum and run their classrooms.
Maybe it’s no longer surprising that DESE would promote training (and trainers) whose ideological priors don’t align with those of many MA families. But since there might be some parents who don’t yet realize that even gym class has been politicized, these affiliations are worth mentioning.
(Here’s another rabbit hole you can go down - want to know more about what Advocates for Youth and SHAPE promote? Download the slides from Gelperin’s 2024 “Beyond Rainbows and Pronouns” presentation below.)
Plymouth Public Schools also spent a LOT of money on Sex Ed and SEL curriculum.
The public records request also revealed invoices from ETR for their HealthSmart curriculum. According to these invoices, it appears that the PPS paid $56,000+ per year for this curriculum in 2024 and 2025.
If true, that’s a ton of money for a curriculum, especially considering it’s a prepackaged curriculum - and that price appears to be on top of the monies paid for the training and professional development! We have to wonder if this is what Plymouth taxpayers really want their tax dollars to pay for. $56k per year for a class that many students will likely opt out of hardly seems like a good value, regardless of the curriculum content. (Also, is this hefty pricetag the reason why the PPS is so unwilling to provide copies of lessons to parents? Are they trying to protect their investment? Shouldn’t they be more worried about protecting kids - and parental rights - instead?)
The public records request also uncovered how much the PPS paid for a three-year license for Second Step, an SEL curriculum. That cost the district another $54k. Yikes.
You can download all of these documents below.
While we were reviewing the documents we got back from the public records request, Plymouth parents were busy mobilizing their community. A group of concerned parents called Protect Plymouth Youth planned (and held) an education event on November 18th.
These parents also set up an incredible website to further educate parents about what’s happening in Plymouth sex ed, and why it matters. The local news source The Plymouth Independent has picked up on this story as well. Per their article, a reported 244 people attended the November 18th event. This is really remarkable, and it just goes to show what a group of motivated parents can do. Kudos to Protect Plymouth Youth - you are doing great work!
In the meantime, the PPS has put back out their 8th grade sex ed opt out form. According to the form, the new lessons will now begin on Friday, January 12th. The form provides a list of topics, but does not contain specific information on the content of the lessons.
It seems the PPS has not learned their lesson about the importance of curricular transparency just yet. But will they?
Tonight, December 1st at 7:00pm, the Plymouth school committee meets again. Sex Ed is on the agenda.
The agenda includes a presentation by the Health/PE K-8 Department Head and the Assistant Superintendent. You can review the whole presentation here.
Or download it here:
Parents, tonight’s meeting is your next best opportunity to find out what’s going on, and make your concerns clear. We recommend you attend if possible. We also recommend that you take note of at least two troubling things that we found in this slideshow, which per the agenda, will be presented tonight.
First, it appears that the slideshow is stating that MA law mandates that “any school offering sexual health education must provide a medically accurate, age-appropriate, and comprehensive curriculum consistent with the state’s Comprehensive Health Framework.”
This is not true. Current MA law does NOT require this. Learn more about what MA law does - and does NOT require - on this informative, downloadable pdf from Massachusetts Family Institute. This is extremely important.
It appears that what this slide is actually describing is what the law would be IF the much-contested Healthy Youth Act passes. This bill, while currently before the House and Senate, has NOT passed and is NOT the law. You can learn more about the Healthy Youth Act here and contact your legislators to tell them why they should oppose it here.
This distinction matters a great deal, because if the PPS is justifying these curricular changes based on a faulty understanding of MA law, or upon a bill that has NOT passed, they need to be called out for it.
Second, the slideshow contains the PPS’s intent to continue to expand sex ed. Not only do they want it in 8th grade, which is new this year, they want it in grades 6-8 in the future.
Plymouth parents, it’s time to make your voices heard. It’s also time to dig in and find out, if this is happening in middle school, what is the district proposing for K-5 and 9-12? In 2022, MFI received information from the PPS as part of its Sex Ed Map Project on what it was doing for sex ed across multiple grade levels. You can review that information here. Has this changed? What’s actually going on in the classroom? Time to find out.
If you are a Plymouth parent and you have new information to share with us, please email us at massinformedparents@gmail.com. We are happy to expand this report, and we always protect our sources.
We will be watching what happens in Plymouth, and will update you with major changes.
If you’re not a Plymouth parent, here’s your cue to take inspiration from the folks in Plymouth and get active in your own community. Has your district received DESE grants to implement new sex ed programming? Is your district spending gobs of money on health curriculum that it won’t allow parents to see? What’s happening in your town? Time for you to find out, too.
Involved parents rock. Go get ‘em, mom and dad.
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