After Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School Principal (LCBMS) Frank Ruolo refused to notify other parents that her son's 7th Grade science teacher, Steve Trinkle, gave their children multiple homework assignments with sexually explicit media, our brave Undercover Mother continued working her way up the chain of command by scheduling and covertly recording a meeting with Lakeland Central School District (LCSD) Assistant Superintendent of Instruction, Tracy Norman. Undercover Mother was on a mission to ensure that higher-ups in the district were aware that her son's 7th-grade class had received multiple inappropriate sexually explicit homework assignments from their teacher, and that the other parents be notified their kids may have been exposed to pornographic images and sexualized media on numerous occasions (including being given a personality test that gave the teacher each child's strengths, weaknesses and sexual tendencies at the beginning of the school year). In this meeting, Dr. Tracy Norman, LCSD Assistant Supt. of Instruction, received detailed information about multiple inappropriate assignments the mother discovered on her son’s LCSD school-issued Chromebook from his science teacher.
Dr. Norman acknowledged that he spoke with LCBMS Principal, Frank Ruolo, who made him aware that inappropriate content–including personality (psych) tests that included the children's strengths and weaknesses and 'Romantic' tendencies–had been given to students by their science teacher but admitted he did not review the assignments himself. Undercover Mother showed Dr. Norman sexually explicit, pornographic images of sex dolls (pictured above) that were featured in links to an article entitled ‘Best Sex Dolls’ that appeared under the heading ‘Additional Resources’ on a website assigned by the teacher to study for final exams on Body Systems. Dr. Norman was visibly repelled by the sexually explicit, pornographic images he was shown and by what he heard from Undercover Mother about the sexualized media in the assignments. LCSD Technology Coach, Scott Staub, who exclaimed “Oh, my goodness” upon seeing the images, is heard "backing up" Undercover Mother’s contention that the links to the pornographic images were accessible to the students through numerous links on the landing page assigned to the students by the teacher. When it comes to the effect of sexually explicit media on children, Dr. Norman acknowledges the findings of studies from the National Institute of Health that conclude sexually explicit media and pornography are detrimental to children’s health. Dr. Norman further agreed with Undercover Mother that the content sent by the teacher was most likely a clear violation of the district’s Computer and Internet Use and, Internet Safety Policy 6154, which prohibits sharing content ‘harmful to minors’ defined as: “Depicts, describes or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is suitable for minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals.” Dr. Norman was then informed of yet a fourth assignment given by Mr. Trinkle to his students, a periodic writing assignment. The writing assignment prompts the student to pick any article from a website and write about it, including how it makes them feel. One of the current articles was, "Primates have been masturbating for at least 40 million years". Seemingly concerned, Dr. Norman offered to provide school resources including counselors and clinicians to help any students who may have been affected by the repeated sexualized study materials sent by Mr. Trinkle, “Whatever we have to do to support, you know our students or whatever, we're willing to do that. And what I mean by that is through our resources. I will work with Mr. Ruolo, or whomever, to get to them whatever resources they need, if they need to talk to someone or meet with families or whatever. We have counselors here to do that." "As a father," Dr. Norman said he found the inappropriate content sent to the students “hurtful” and asked Undercover Mother to let parents in the community know that, “I care,” stating that, “if something like that happens in our district, that's a problem.” Despite his disgust as an adult at what he saw, Dr. Norman refused to notify the parents, confirming that the decision not to tell them their children were given a psych test and multiple sexually explicit homework assignments, including links to pornographic images of sex dolls by Mr. Trinkle was made by himself, Principal Ruolo, and LCSD Superintendent Karen Gagliardi.SEXUALIZED EDUCATION - Part 1
