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Aspen High indoctrinates students

I was disturbed by Aspen High School Principal Sarah Strassburger’s April 11 guest commentary: “State board of education representative off mark on Aspen High Survey.”

The principal’s letter was in response to an opinion piece by Joyce Rankin, member of the State Board of Education: “Sex, religion and your high school.” Rankin’s column was not published by either Aspen newspaper, but it did appear in several other Colorado newspapers.

Rankin describes how Aspen High School violated Colorado law by requiring students to take the survey without prior written parental consent. Strassburger’s rambling woke defense, filled with leftist gobbledygook, emphasizes that the survey was anonymous. But the Colorado law applies “whether the information is personally identifiable or not.” In other words, anonymity does not remove the requirement for parental consent.



Strassburger asserts without proof that students were not required to take the survey. Students were shown an “equity team video” prior to taking the survey. The video and the survey have been passed around among parents via email. Nothing in the video or the survey says that it is optional. Just the opposite — most of the survey questions are marked “required”!

I agree with Rankin: “It’s clear the principal and teachers at this school broke the law.”




Strassburger claims Rankin’s article is “a highly political move.” Perhaps in this age of releasing thousands of convicted felons from prison and defunding police, any suggestion laws should be followed is political.

Besides breaking the law, this so-called survey was a thinly veiled indoctrination exercise for the students. And, given the way the survey was administered online, I seriously doubt the students’ answers were all that anonymous.

Michael Malcolm

Aspen