Arizona principal tells staff students' pronouns 'can't be shared' with parents

An Arizona school principal put together a "confidential" list of students' preferred names and pronouns and emailed it to staff members asking them to withhold the information from the children's families, according to a Fox News report.

Principal Mark Rubin-Toles of Orange Grove Middle School, sent staff an email with the subject line "CONFIDENTIAL: list of students with students pronouns & preferred names different than in Synergy."

In the email, Rubin-Toles wrote to "Teachers and staff," saying "if you are like me you may have been challenged recently to keep some of our kids’ pronouns and preferred names straight - and to remember what can and can’t be shared to families."

The email also tells staff to be careful with students' level of "staff awareness," adding for them to "please be very careful - students in red are NOT comfortable with us sharing information to their parents / guardians. This can be cognitively challenging. It is our responsibility to protect student privacy in these matters."

"Our goal is to be able to respect these students' pronouns, names, and privacy consistently across campus," it concludes.

The emails were obtained through a records request by Nicole Solas, a senior fellow with Independent Women's Forum.

The Catalina Foothills School District responded to Fox News' request for comment, saying, "This has never been our practice in our school district."

Julie Farbarik, director of alumni and community relations, went on to say, "We respect any student's preference regarding how they are addressed in school, be it a nickname or a pronoun request ... however, as students are informed, if a parent were to inquire, our staff do not keep this information from parents. Further, we encourage students to discuss these matters with their parents."

In response to the email's subject line, Farbarik admits, "Yes, the email with that subject line is authentic," but also mentions that the list "should not have been created, and it no longer exists."

Solas responded to the district's statement saying, "Waiting for a parents to casually inquire about whether their children are in distress is absurd and wholly insufficient to keep children safe."

"The school also pretends that a nickname like ‘Frank’ in place of ‘Francis’ is no different from an ideological gender affirming pronoun indicating a child is under mental distress and wrestling with an identity crisis," Solas adds.

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