North Cook News

An Awake Illinois tweet showed an invoice from a children’s hospital in Chicago for services provided to teachers and officials from Community Consolidated School District 15 in January.

The services included Gender and Sexuality Education Sessions and were completed by the various groups of educators in January. The unit price of the lesson packages was $1,000, making a total of $3,000 paid by the district for the three groups to attend through the month and receive the digital resources. The district was also billed $150 as a travel fee between Chicago and Palatine.

"It’s happening," Shannon Adcock, founder of Awake Illinois, said in a tweet that also displayed the invoices. "Don’t let anyone gaslight you, parents."

The hospital that provided the educational sessions was Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

The hospital’s Sexuality Education Program offers “thoughtful, culturally responsive, and LGBTQIA inclusive conversations as students learn about relationships, social emotional development, and their bodies,” its website said. Lessons can be directed to students at all levels from elementary to middle and high school lessons, including workshops and sex education discussions for the higher levels. There are seminars for parents and families to learn about the topics, and there are professional development sessions for teachers and administrators.

The hospital educational team is certified to bring such presentations and lessons into the public schools at the request of the district. These educator lessons include an overview of sex education for the age level of a teacher’s students, hands-on practice to support sexuality learning in the classrooms, preparation and plans for parents nights, Q&A sessions, opportunities to shadow other lessons on the subject, and a review of their own district’s curriculum and practices.

The invoice showed that the teachers who received the lessons were middle school teachers. The 7th/8th-grade team had a two-hour session on Jan. 10 with a follow-up committee meeting on Jan. 24. In between those, the 5th/6th-grade team had a one and a half-hour session including a puberty education demo on Jan. 17.