Parental rights group files ethics complaint after Chicago campaign credit debacle

WASHINGTON (TND) — Chicago's mayor says it was a mistake that a staffer sent an email soliciting Chicago students for their help with the mayor's reelection campaign in exchange for credit hours.

Erika Sanzi, director of outreach at Parents Defending Education, joined The National Desk Tuesday morning to discuss the story.

Lori Lightfoot confirmed a campaign staffer sent those emails to Chicago Public School teachers stating the students would receive credit in exchange for working on her campaign. It was then revised to state that it would give students a chance to learn about civic engagement and the campaign.

Finally, another statement was issued that said, in part, "all campaign staff have been reminded about the solid wall that must exist between campaign and official activities."

Parents Defending Education filed an ethics complaint, asking the city of Chicago's Board of Ethics to open an investigation.

"Really there were two sort of issues that really stuck out to us," Sanzi said. "One is that you cannot use city property for political activity, which means that the campaign's shouldn't have even had a list of all of the email addresses of all the teachers in the district. So the question becomes, how did they get that and then even if they have it, which they shouldn't have it they definitely can't be using it for political activity.The other issue is that is around gifts and favors. You cannot offer class credit to students for working on your campaign."

Another story PDE is watching comes out of Alabama surrounding Baldwin County Public Schools and their mandate that school counselors have to affirm students' preferred gender identity, according to a document made public.

“Now it's including, you know, in addition to making sure that you honor, respect and affirm people's race, special education status, whether or not they're in foster care, that kind of thing. It includes now gender identity, gender and gender expression. And then it uses the words 'honor,' 'respect' and 'affirm,' which again, those are sort of vague terms. But when we talk about gender-affirming, that essentially means that you go along with whatever the child says. And it's unclear to us what that means in terms of parents being informed, right, and parents and parental rights."

You can watch the full interview below: