My child is being sexually harassed through reading assignments at school

Here I am trying to do everything I can to raise my young daughters properly and vigilantly monitoring the onslaught of content they consume.

What are they watching? What are they listening to? What are they scrolling through? Is it appropriate?

Then comes Kipps Beyond Middle School, the charter school in Harlem that I was originally excited for our teenager to attend.

And all my efforts to protect me were blatantly ignored.

No, my 12-year-old daughter was not pressured by her peers to try sexually explicit content.

Her 7th grade English teacher forced her to do this – without my consent or knowledge.

“Aristotle and Dante explore the mysteries of the universe” is a wonderful title for a book.

The Van Gogh-inspired cover was featured in a class night slideshow, suggesting that our children would embark on a philosophical, cosmological journey that would open their minds to a new level of literary and intellectual exploration.

Insidious, insidious: Only after the students had finished reading this book did the parents find out what was actually written between the covers.

“The boys in the book masturbate in front of each other a lot,” my daughter’s friend blurted out as several families were having dinner together at a restaurant.

We thought our children would be exposed to philosophy, but eventually discovered that the book only contained characters named after philosophers – who were obsessed with itself.

Not to mention the casual heroin use, a 15-year-old who hires a transsexual prostitute, and a prison murder – among other similarly wholesome elements – all of which appear in the book assigned to my underage daughter.

Remember when the city made Times Square family-friendly? It seems like everything they swept away has been regurgitated in the pages of the books my child has to read in school.

If such sexually explicit content were shared in most workplaces, a HR SWAT team would be alerted and heads would roll.

Lawyers would be licking their fingers at the prospect of multimillion-dollar harassment lawsuits.

Why should we look away when teachers assign explicit books to children?

“But the book has won awards!” the school’s teachers objected when we parents protested.

It doesn’t matter if the parents approve, as long as someone who doesn’t know or care about our children has given the book their gold seal of approval.

Meanwhile, the Head of English Language and Literature at Kipps Beyond has publicly questioned whether Shakespeare is still relevant and should be taught at all.

Poor guy has never won a diversity award! So naturally the Bard should be de-prioritized in classrooms in favor of lesser authors who tick all the right social justice boxes.

A word about the word “diversity”: It is neither a synonym for sexually explicit material, nor does it grant immunity to teachers who sexually molest underage children by assigning such content.

What was the response after six months of protests, meetings, emails, texts, phone calls and Zoom calls with the principal, teachers, staff and regional directors?

The founding principal, who spat in the face of the values ​​and objections of the parents, announced that the seventh grade students would next be given “The Poet X”, a book that even more explicit and sexually charged.

My daughter’s teachers kept giving 12-year-olds completely erotic books.

After one of my endless emails to officials throughout the New York City Department of Education finally caught someone’s attention, the school finally relented and agreed to award Lord of the Flies instead – at least this year.

But Kipps NYC’s chief educational officer subsequently confirmed to me in an email that her charter school system remained committed to teaching the books we objected to — as well as other sexually explicit books — because they were consistent with its “core values.”

It amazes me that in the wake of #MeToo, so many educators still don’t understand that “no” means “no.”

Nor do parents deserve to have educators continually accuse them of citing bigotry as the reason for our objections.

My own family is diverse in every way, from pronouns to pizza toppings, so spare me the tactical gaslighting.

Am I just one of those parents – a book banner? Not really.

As a journalist, author, and entertainer, none of my professional activities are possible without the unconditional use and defense of the First Amendment.

But I identify first and foremost as a father.

So when it comes to accepting that any adult or institution or teacher or school system can violate my young girls’ boundaries and my values ​​as a parent, the answer is: Sorry, this daddy doesn’t play that game.

School systems that engage in these predatory practices will never admit it.

But if a teacher shows a child explicit sexual-erotic content, someone should call the police.

Every workplace has laws and policies designed to protect adults from harassment by unwanted sexual conduct, including the presentation of sexual content in a book.

For school-age children, standards should be higher, not more lenient – ​​and parents must loudly communicate this truth to the Diversity Industrial Complex that runs our schools.

Bill Santiago is a stand-up comedian and author of “Pardon My Spanglish.”