Maria Varchetto said she feels “insulted, offended, angry, and sad” after pulling her four children from Washington’s Martha Lake Elementary School.
Varchetto is removing her four children from Martha Lake Elementary School in the Edmonds School District after learning her daughter received a Pride Month lesson in music class without prior notice to parents or an opportunity to opt out.
The lesson was presented to elementary school students, including her daughter, on June 15 at Martha Lake Elementary School as part of a music class.
“I assumed I had probably missed an email asking for consent, but there was nothing,” Varchetto said in communications with school administrators. “No advanced notice, no opportunity to review the lesson, no information letting parents know this topic would be discussed. No option to request that our kids be allowed to opt out and participate in an alternative activity. There was nothing.”
The video shown was titled “Why is Pride in June,” from the YouTube account “Queer Kid Stuff,” which describes itself as imagining “a kinder and more equal future through highly-accessible education and entertainment for kids ages 3+.”
Varchetto’s daughter came home upset during the final week of school and described a lesson devoted to Pride history and LGBTQ identities.
“My daughter came home just so drastically upset the last week of school telling me that the music teacher decided to teach a whole curriculum about Pride history and Pride Month,” Varchetto said.
She began asking other parents whether they had been notified. “So nobody knew this stuff,” Varchetto said.
“They started getting pissed too. They started emailing the principal.”
She then challenged the school’s curriculum choices directly.
“My first question was, ‘How does this content relate to the Washington state music curriculum?'” she said.
According to Varchetto, the principal provided her with a state music curriculum document that contained no references to Pride or gender identity.
Varchetto argued the omission reinforced her belief that the lesson had not been handled transparently.
Varchetto also said she reviewed the music teacher’s end-of-year summary sent to parents, which outlined the themes students studied throughout the school year but made no mention of the Pride Month lesson.
Unsatisfied with the response, Varchetto said she gave the school several weeks to notify parents before taking her concerns public. When no notice was sent, she said she emailed Superintendent Rebecca Miner, the assistant superintendent, and other district administrators requesting that her children be transferred out of Martha Lake Elementary.
“I no longer feel safe with them being there anymore. I don’t trust the leadership of that school,” she said.
“I feel insulted, offended, angry, and sad that my kids are now being taken out of a lifestyle they’ve grown to love, away from the friendships they’ve built, all because this one teacher didn’t care to ask permission and a principal lied and hid it.”
Varchetto then decided on a more drastic step.
Maria Varchetto explained why she no longer trusts the school’s leadership and has decided to enroll her children in hybrid homeschool beginning this fall.
In response, the school district stood by the teacher’s decision.
Edmonds School District Communications Director Curtis Campbell said the lesson “was not part of a districtwide Pride curriculum.” Instead, he said it “was a music lesson developed by the school’s music teacher that highlighted the contributions of influential musicians, including some who identify as LGBTQ+.”
Campbell said the lesson’s purpose “was to teach music and music history through the lives and contributions of notable artists,” adding that discussions about an artist’s background or identity were included “as relevant biographical context, similar to how students may learn about other aspects of historical figures’ lives that helped shape their experiences and contributions.”
In the viral moment that sparked the controversy, Varchetto discovered her daughter had watched a video about Pride history as part of a music curriculum without any advance warning to parents. She said her daughter described the lesson as covering Pride history and LGBTQ identities. When Varchetto reached out to school leadership asking how the content fit Washington’s music standards, she said no connections were explained and the topic was conspicuously absent from the teacher’s year-end summary of lessons.
Varchetto’s escalating concerns led her to contact district superintendents and request her children’s transfer from the school, ultimately deciding to move all four children to homeschooling.
Varchetto’s children will be enrolled in hybrid homeschool beginning this fall.