Texas mom Laura Maria Gruber all the time considered herself a “woke” liberal in favor of progressive causes, even sending her young daughter to a charter school that celebrates “diversity, equity and inclusion,” in keeping with the varsity’s web page.
But she never thought her 13-year-old could be asked to play a “seducing hooker” in a bizarre classroom game.
“I picked my daughter and her best friend up from school and my daughter said ‘We played this game in school, Mom, and also you’re going to be upset,’” Gruber told The Post Saturday from her home in San Antonio.
“When she told me about kids getting up at school and posing as hookers, I almost crashed the automotive.”
The September incident was so disturbing, Gruber said, she pulled her daughter from the varsity and demanded an apology from administrators.
Gruber, 45, a Latina from Puerto Rico, came upon the sport was called “Bear-Hooker-Hunter” and went online, discovering it’s an adult drinking game version of rock-paper-scissors.
As a part of the sport, Gruber said her daughter and the opposite seventh graders within the Social Emotional Learning class at KIPP Poder Academy needed to pair up and stand within the front of the room.
The children were then told to strike poses — either as a hunter, pointing an imaginary gun at one another; as a scary bear with its paws up, or as a “seducing hooker,” with a hand on one hip and one other behind their ear, the distraught mom said.
The goal of the sport was unclear aside from being some kind of “team constructing” exercise, said Gruber, who felt the sport sexualized the youngsters.
The girls and boys were organized from youngest to oldest, with some allegedly bribed with candy to get them to play along, the daughter told the mom.
“The teacher was pretty young, so you’ll be able to imagine what type of persons are coming out of universities now to show our youngsters,” Gruber said.
“My daughter was so grossed out and embarrassed,” she added. “She said the boys and the teacher were laughing.
“One other little girl in the category had been sexually assaulted, so the experience was especially cringe for her.”
Gruber pulled her daughter out of the varsity every week later but was determined to lodge a protest with the varsity administrators, a laborious and frustrating process, she said.
“I actually feel like I’ve been had,” Gruber said. “I wanted my child to go to this school for the variety and trusted them. But I didn’t realize it could involve sexual diversity and children being sexualized.
“The worst part is that this school is within the inner city and San Antonio is well often called being a baby sex trafficking hub.”
After almost six months of meeting with KIPP administrators in San Antonio and Austin, Gruber said she got an apology, of sorts, from the board.
School parents didn’t study Gruber’s criticism in regards to the game until the board issued the apology.
The response was too little, too late, Gruber said.
KIPP admitted the sport occurred as described, in keeping with paperwork from the varsity seen by The Post.
Despite having kids pose as “seducing hookers,” 4 levels of KIPP administration — School Principal Stephanie Lee, Deputy Superintendent Jeremy Gray, Regional Superintendent Allen Smith and KIPP Texas CEO Sehba Ali — denied the sport sexualized children.
“While we all the time chase excellence as a core value, sometimes we stumble,” Lee wrote in a Feb. 16 letter to high school families.
The principal admitted, nonetheless, that the “game Bear-Hooker-Hunter….didn’t meet our bar of excellence.”
“This game was not a part of any KIPP curriculum, and it was not appropriate for college kids,” she wrote. “Any activities with actions or words like ‘hooker’ or ‘seduce’ should never have a spot in our schools. While the intent was never to sexualize a baby, I recognize that the impact could have caused students to feel uncomfortable or traumatized. That doesn’t honor the respect we aim to show our students in any respect times; in fact, it’s degrading.”
“The term ‘hooker’ is an unkind word and never one it’s best to use or repeat,” the principal said within the letter.
KIPP is thought nationally for its progressive education in america, and for providing an equitable education to Black, Latino and LGBTQIA children.
School administrators couldn’t be reached for comment.
