ADF Demands Colorado District Scrap or Overhaul Sex-Ed Curriculum

What ADF is alleging

In the letter and in a subsequent social media statement, ADF argued the curriculum exposes children as young as 5 to graphic and ideologically driven material about human sexuality, including anatomical images that are followed by quizzes asking students to identify body parts such a nipple, vulva, and clitoris. The group also said lessons direct young children to discuss how they like to be touched and to reject a binary understanding of gender.

By sixth grade, according to ADF, students are directed to act as “Sex Ed Sleuths” who research sexual-education websites on their own, with parental permission or involvement only addressed after that research is complete.

The letter goes further in the upper grades. In a seventh-grade lesson titled “I Am Who I Am,” the curriculum teaches students that the idea of choosing one’s sexual orientation or gender identity is a myth, and students are required to affirm that concept on a worksheet, according to ADF.

Eighth graders, the letter states, fill out a separate worksheet rating how “LGBTQ-inclusive” their school is, using measures such as whether the school celebrates Valentine’s Day for LGBTQ couples, displays LGBTQ-themed posters in hallways, and uses the term “parent/guardian” rather than “mom and dad.”

High schoolers complete their own myth-or-fact worksheet affirming that a person cannot change his or her sexual orientation and are instructed to avoid terms like “homosexual” or “straight,” ADF’s letter states. The letter also says the high school curriculum favors gender-inclusive phrasing – using a term for female anatomy in place of “girl or woman” – as part of its approach to gender inclusivity.

ADF’s letter is also sharply critical of how the district structures parental notice and opt-outs. The group alleges Roaring Fork requires only two weeks’ notice before a 3Rs lesson is taught, that some parents receive even less, and that the district’s opt-out process is difficult to find – a paper opt-out letter placed in a student’s take-home folder, paired with a digital version the letter says is often buried among other announcements on the Remind app and labeled generically as “health education,” which obscures its content from parents. ADF argues this system was deliberately designed to preserve high participation rates rather than to give parents a genuine choice, contrasting it with the district’s own stated goal of ensuring students have access to health education.

The letter cites the case of a Crystal River Elementary School parent whose kindergartner brought home the “Understanding Our Bodies” lesson plan in January 2026. According to ADF, the opt-out form included in the folder did not specify a lesson date, only stating the lesson would occur “the following month,” and did not include the graphic slides that would accompany the lesson.

The school listed the curriculum under different names in different places, ADF’s letter states, referring to it as “Comprehensive Health Curriculum” in the take-home folder and simply “Health Curriculum” in a monthly online newsletter – where the announcement was mixed in with other school news and required parents to click through a link in the Remind app to find it.

ADF, which describes itself as the world’s largest legal organization focused on religious freedom, free speech, and parental rights, framed the core issue as a constitutional one: automatic enrollment in the lessons, combined with what it called inconsistent notice to parents and, in some cases, no meaningful opportunity to opt children out.

The organization’s letter calls on the school board to either drop the curriculum entirely or switch from an opt-out system —–where parents must actively remove their child from the lessons – to an opt-in system, so that only students whose parents affirmatively consent would receive the material.

ADF President Kristen Waggoner underscored the group’s position in a post on X earlier this week.

“This isn’t just shocking and disturbing. It’s a violation of parents’ constitutional rights,” she wrote. “Exposing young children to graphic sexual content without the knowledge & guidance of their parents is both morally reprehensible and legally impermissible.”

The district’s response

Roaring Fork Schools did not adopt the 3Rs curriculum wholesale. According to the Post Independent, district officials selected roughly 18 lessons out of more than 100 available in the broader 3Rs lesson bank, screening out material they judged inappropriate for the age group or community. Yet, what they included and excluded remains was not clearly outlined, parental rights groups complain. District leaders have said the required lessons were “highlighted for their safety,” and a district update earlier this year indicated all schools had incorporated the required lessons, with about half also using additional recommended ones.

The board first adopted the curriculum in May 2023 after nearly two years of review, incorporating community and professional feedback. It became a flashpoint in that fall’s board elections and has resurfaced repeatedly at board meetings since, with a vocal group of parents – including Carbondale resident Tanner Gianinetti, who has spoken at multiple meetings and posted a YouTube video criticizing the program – arguing the lessons move too fast and was too explicit for young children, and that the district’s rollout made opting out difficult. Other parents and community members have voiced support for the curriculum.

Gianinetti was able to convince his school to rescind the kindergarten curriculum but remains deeply concerned about the district’s continued commitment to the 3Rs curriculum at all elementary, middle-school, and secondary school levels.

Roaring Fork is one of several Colorado districts using some version of the 3Rs framework.

“This is the first time that the kindergarten curriculum has been exposed and brought to the district,” Gianinetti said in his YouTube video. “That’s pretty alarming, and especially when we’re talking about something as radicalized as this.”

“Why is there not more call to action? What was there no stakeholder survey with the parents, the teachers, the staff?” he questioned.

“5-8-year-old kids do not need to be subjected to this political indoctrination or be given an anatomy lesson that far exceeds their mental or emotional intelligence or their capacity,” he added.

The Supreme Court backdrop

ADF’s letter arrives roughly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case widely seen as reshaping the legal landscape for disputes like the one in Roaring Fork. In that case, a religiously diverse group of Maryland parents sued Montgomery County’s school board after it introduced LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks into the elementary curriculum and eliminated parents’ ability to opt their children out. The parents argued the no-opt-out policy burdened their right to freely exercise their religion.

On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in the parents’ favor, holding that the school board’s introduction of the storybooks combined with its refusal to allow opt-outs placed an unconstitutional burden on parents’ First Amendment rights, and that the parents were entitled to a preliminary injunction. The ruling is widely regarded as having strengthened parents’ ability to exempt their children from public-school lessons they object to on religious grounds, though its full reach beyond the Maryland storybooks is still being tested in lower courts.

ADF was not lead counsel in Mahmoud v. Taylor – that role belonged to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty – but the organization filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case on behalf of a Wisconsin mother, arguing more broadly for parents’ authority over how schools handle their children’s gender and sexuality. Following the high court’s Maryland ruling, ADF publicly celebrated the decision as a major win for religious freedom and parental rights, and the group has since cited it as legal precedent in disputes with other school districts. The Roaring Fork letter is among the actions ADF has taken invoking that precedent, arguing the same constitutional logic – that parents have a right to adequate notice and a genuine ability to opt out of instruction touching on gender and sexuality – applies to the 3Rs curriculum.

Jim Walsh, a Texas lawyer who represents school boards and is a member of the National School Attorneys Association, said the Maryland case reflects a broader dynamic playing out in districts like Roaring Fork.

“The case is a good illustration of the fact that public schools are at ground zero in the culture wars,” he said. “We all want the school to reflect our values, but we don’t agree on our values. And certainly issues about same-sex marriage, the rights of lesbians and gays, are right at the center of that.”

What’s next?

ADF’s letter puts the school board on notice that it could face further legal action if it does not remove the curriculum or move to an opt-in model. A spokeswoman for Roaring Fork School District acknowledged a request for comment from RealClearPolitics but did not provide a response within 48 hours. Advocates for Youth, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that develops the 3Rs curriculum and supports LGBTQ-inclusive sex education in public schools nationwide, also did not return a request for comment.

Advocates for Youth, on its website, says its mission is partnering with “young people and young adults to champion youth rights and to bodily autonomy” and to build “power to transform policies, programs and systems to secure sexual health and equity for all youth.”

The organization also makes no bones about its LGBTQ and abortion political advocacy. For 25 years, it has run the annual Youth Advocate Institute – a five-day gathering committed to “equipping young people with the tools to fight for sexual health, reproductive justice, and LGBTQ rights,” according to an article in the Advocate, the oldest and largest circulation LGBTQ publication in the country.

One of its campaigns is called the Youth Abortion Support Collective, which helps organize young activists and connects them to “a nationwide network of young people committed to abortion access resources in their communities and supporting folks getting the care they need.”