Why Santa Fe Schools Silenced My Daughter And Gaslit Parents Like Me

If you told my 2025 self that I would be empowering parents to confront the Santa Fe Public School Board over parental rights, I would never have believed you. But the stakes are higher than ever in New Mexico right now. Every parent across this nation needs to be aware of the harmful practices that New Mexico public schools (and many others across the country) are doing behind parents’ backs and to our precious children.

Last August, in our household, the school year began like any other. We piled our kids into the car and sent them off to Santa Fe Public Schools.

My husband and I were born and raised in Santa Fe, and our families have long been an integral part of the community. Both of us were products of the local public schools, so we had no doubt our children would be safe, cared for, and educated — until a few weeks into the school year.

One night at dinner, my daughter was visibly upset. Our daughter dominates the dinner table conversations, making sure that everyone knows everything about her day. But that night, instead of her normal bubbly self, she just stared at her plate.

My husband and I immediately knew that something was wrong. We told her that no matter what happened, she wouldn’t be in trouble; we’d figure it out together.

Finally, she said, “I don’t like the way a boy is making me feel.”

My six-year-old daughter told us that a boy followed her into the bathroom, and that her teacher had sent him in there with her. She also said that he had been inappropriately touching himself in class, repeatedly — something no first grader should be exposed to even once.

Immediately, we met with her teacher, expecting a conversation about inappropriate behavior. Instead, we received a lesson in the district’s gender policies.

The teacher informed us that the boy in question had what they call a “gender support plan.” The school therefore recognized him as a girl and gave him access to all female spaces. We were also told that it would be more dangerous for the boy to go in a bathroom that didn’t conform to his gender identity than it would be for my daughter to use the bathroom with a biological boy.

I wanted to know why parents were never informed that their daughters would be expected to share private spaces with a biological male and to tolerate inappropriate behavior in the classroom — at the age of six years old. Why were we expected to discover these policies only after our own child came home frightened?

Parents are being intentionally excluded from gender and sexual conversations in New Mexico’s public schools. Typically, if there were inappropriate behavior in a classroom — specifically, sexual harassment — we would expect the administration to handle punishments accordingly and debrief with parents to ensure our children were protected and cared for. But instead, the “Wellness Coordinator” — who is not a licensed psychologist or professional — told me that my daughter needed to get counseling because she was “unaccepting” of other walks of life.

The bottom line is that this message doesn’t empower girls. As parents, we teach our little girls about boundaries, consent, and listening to their gut. We teach them to leave an unsafe situation and to go to the bathroom in pairs. Teaching them to ignore these instincts teaches them to doubt themselves.

Throughout this process, I repeatedly asked the school where the plan was for protecting my daughter. If there is a detailed “gender support plan” for one child, where is the corresponding plan ensuring every other student’s privacy, dignity, and safety?

There wasn’t one. And until the day that I pulled my daughter from the school, school administrators gaslit me to believe that I was the crazy one.

Parents are responsible for protecting their children and are their guardians and providers until they are 18 years old. If I have no authority over what is shown and taught to my children, then what authority do I truly have?

Support for one child cannot come at the expense of every parent’s right to know what is happening in their own children’s lives. Parents — not the school districts — have the primary responsibility to teach their children about sex, gender, privacy, and personal boundaries.

The school and district failed in their duty of care to my daughter and every other little child in that classroom. Schools have a fundamental legal, ethical, and professional responsibility to safeguard the children entrusted to them, take legitimate safety concerns seriously, and communicate honestly with parents.

Instead, the district minimized my daughter’s discomfort, deflected our questions, and treated transparency with families as optional.

Schools exist to educate children, not replace mothers and fathers. When institutions begin withholding critical information about their children’s classroom experience and environment because they believe they know better, they are no longer partnering with families. Instead, they are intentionally replacing families.

This should concern every parent. Because if schools can decide what parents deserve to know and not know today, what will they hide from us tomorrow?

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Kristy Borrego Ojinaga is a New Mexico mother and member of Independent Women’s Network.

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