Exclusive: Utah Mayor Slams Woke ‘Indoctrination’ in Today’s Schools, Calls to Prioritize Student Safety

The mayor of Riverton, Utah, slammed woke “indoctrination” in today’s schools, including the availability of “inappropriate” and “pornographic” text materials, as he called to prioritize students’ “physical, mental, and spiritual” safety.

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Thursday, Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs claimed, “Parents trust that when they send their kids to school, they’ll get a good education free from indoctrination.”

Yet, according to Staggs, “We’ve gotten too lax.” 

“We’re scared to talk about American history, but all too willing to talk about gender reassignment,” he said. 

He concluded that “there should be no greater priority than our children’s safety; physical, mental, and spiritual.” 

On Wednesday, the Riverton mayor spoke out against a local school board over the discovery and proliferation of “inappropriate” materials in schools, in what has since become a viral clip.

Claiming the quite “alarming” issue is not getting the attention it deserves, Staggs railed against the “pornographic materials” now featured in schools. 

“As mayor, I view it really as my number one job to protect the health and safety of all our residents,” he said.

He noted that “scores of residents” have contacted him with concerns over “inappropriate” materials in schools. 

“I receive emails and phone calls [and] to a large extent, I need to tell you, they feel like they’re not being heard,” he said.

In addition, he stated, though the city council sent out an email in September to highlight the issue, “ultimately we still haven’t even met on this.” 

He vowed to continue to “stand willing, able and ready to help in any way that we can, to fight this,” while calling for “this filth… to be removed from our schools” immediately:

There’s over 100 volumes that one parent organization has put together — 100 volumes — still in Jordan School Districts, that clearly violate the law. And I see no justifiable reason for these to be in schools, none whatsoever. There is absolutely no educational value that it’s providing; it’s just so destructive. There is so much out there that talks about how toxic this is, and the effects that it has on kids long term. 

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Admitting “we can’t protect every kid, everywhere,” the mayor acknowledged that at least “we can right here in our own backyard.”

Recalling that during the COVID-19 pandemic, children were forced to wear masks “for their protection,” Staggs described the current situation as a “very legitimate public health crisis” that the state recognized in the past and, yet, “we appear incredibly lax about addressing this issue that has… demonstrable, very negative consequences.”

According to Staggs, “the time for talk is over,” and now is the time to “take action.”

“We have seen an entire school year go by [and] I do not want another school year to go by with these volumes still at the disposal of kids,” he said.

Addressing the school board, the mayor noted that “it is within your power to set policy.”

“One issue that I have heard repeatedly is that the process it takes that one has to go through is per school; and really what ought to happen is if one volume is found to be inappropriate in one school, it ought to be eliminated district-wide,” he said. 

“We would never just ban somebody from a school that’s dealing drugs or other harmful substances,” he added. “We would lock them up, we would get them out of the district altogether, and that’s what we need to do.”

He concluded by reiterating that “we stand as a city, willing, ready and able to help this issue.”

“We’ve worked collaboratively together in the past to address, health and safety of our students and we’re ready to do so again, thank you,” he added.

The matter comes as woke initiatives seek to incorporate leftist gender ideology and queer theory in the educational system, including the dissemination of sexually explicit, pro-LGBTQ and transgender propaganda in elementary and kindergarten classrooms.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who previously signed a bill into law forbidding instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade — held an event last month displaying some of the sexually explicit books found in his state’s schools.

In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an “assessment tool” for teachers and school administrators to measure their commitment to “LGBTQ inclusivity” in the classroom.

The tool asks leading questions about school personnel and their commitment to queer theory, including encouraging sexual education teachers to have gender neutral anatomy, referring to a boy as a “body with a penis” and a girl as a “body with a vagina.”

Last year, the New York State Department of Education promoted cartoonist Maia Kobabe’s book, Gender Queer: a Memoir, which reportedly features explicit drawings of teens performing oral sex, among other acts. 

Actress and education advocate Sam Sorbo has accused today’s schools of “child abuse” while slamming the “craziness” surrounding gender ideology in schools. 

“Your children have been stolen from you by a system that seeks their destruction,” she warned as she called on parents to “save your families” by considering “home education” instead.

Staggs recently vowed to prevent the “communist-style social credit scoring” from guiding the city’s investment decisions as Riverton unanimously approved a resolution objecting to the use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies in credit rating agencies, investment firms, and other financial institutions.