The nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, is once again leaning into political and cultural battles rather than focusing on its core mission of representing educators in collective bargaining.
This fall, as students return to classrooms, the NEA has rolled out a new program called Everyone Is Welcome Here. The initiative, launched in partnership with Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, and other activist groups, provides free “welcome kits” to teachers who sign up.
Each kit includes a tote bag, LGBTQ-themed stickers, lanyards, lapel pins, bracelets, and an “I’m Here” badge from the NEA’s LGBTQ+ caucus. The items are meant to serve as visible symbols that a classroom is “inclusive,” particularly for students identifying as LGBTQ or transgender.
The NEA frames the program as a way to ensure schools are “safe and affirming,” but it crosses the line into political indoctrination and sexual grooming. By teaming up with organizations that promote sexual education and radical gender ideology, the NEA is inserting itself into highly controversial territory — territory many parents believe does not belong in K–12 classrooms.
Planned Parenthood’s involvement adds to parent concerns. Long known as the nation’s largest abortion provider, the group also promotes expansive definitions of “inclusive sex education,” often encouraging teachers to introduce students to gender fluidity, sexual identity exploration, and topics far removed from reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Planned Parenthood is now one of the biggest providers of “gender affirming care,” which is the term used to refer to transgender procedures and drugs.
Instead of improving academic standards, addressing plummeting test scores, or focusing on the needs of students struggling to recover from pandemic-era learning loss, the NEA is devoting its resources to cultural activism. The organization insists that children must be “affirmed” in their gender identity in order to thrive. But the very branding of “Everyone Is Welcome Here” suggests the opposite: students, teachers, and parents who hold traditional beliefs may find their values are anything but welcome.
Opponents say that parents, rather than unions or activist groups, should decide what values are taught to children. “This is not about safety. It’s about sexualizing classrooms,” one education advocate told Must Read Alaska. “The NEA has strayed so far from its original mission of supporting teachers and negotiating for better wages and working conditions. Now, it’s just another political machine.”
The Everyone Is Welcome Here kits are available to the first 1,000 teachers who sign up, with shipments expected within two weeks. The message is clear: Classrooms across America are being transformed into ideological battlegrounds, with the NEA leading the charge.