00:00:00.000they tell us it's not really happening well tell that to jefferson county in colorado that has
00:00:09.90061 boys competing on girls sports teams that is in one county uh welcome back to the show today
00:00:19.620i'm super excited uh we are talking to a true warrior for girls she's a friend of mine i've
00:00:26.120had the honor of standing with her before. Her name is Lindsay Datko. She is the founder of
00:00:31.240Jeffco Kids First in Colorado. She is a wife, she is a mom, she is a teacher, and she is one of the
00:00:38.340most relentless child advocates out there. What started for her as a parent group pushing back
00:00:45.180during the pandemic has become really a force of thousands of parents in the state of Colorado,
00:00:50.260but really nationwide, fighting for transparency, fighting for safety, fighting for parental
00:00:55.840rights. Again, this is in Jefferson County Public Schools. Her team at Jeffco Kids First has
00:01:01.920documented 33 cases of sexual abuse, misconduct, and grooming by staff since 2022. That's only in
00:01:10.580less than four years, really, at this point. These are cases that the district tried to
00:01:15.220very entirely. But just last week, Lindsay and Jeffco Kids First really helped deliver a massive
00:01:21.500Title IX victory. The U.S. Department of Education ruled that Jeffco violated federal law by letting
00:01:28.480men, or I guess in this case boys, into girls' bathrooms, locker rooms, overnight accommodations,
00:01:34.100and of course, even on girls' sports teams. As I said, with boys occupying 61 girls' roster spots,
00:01:42.400This is exactly the fight that we have been in nationwide. And Lindsay, she's really leading the charge in Colorado. So stay tuned here.
00:01:50.200well lindsey thank you for joining the show i was talking about you in the introduction
00:01:57.240and how the pandemic was one of your kind of aha moments of course you're a teacher you're a mom
00:02:03.360in jefferson county can you talk about that i can't stay silent anymore moment that led you
00:02:09.940ultimately to finding jeffco kids first yeah and you know both my mom and i are teachers
00:02:15.740and they were about to shut school doors and as teachers of young readers we thought if they do
00:02:22.820this their their reading is going to suffer immensely and so my mom actually woke up at 2
00:02:29.380a.m one night with this thought let's start gathering our friends let's start letting them
00:02:34.120know we want to have the choice she calls it divine inspiration and I really think it was
00:02:40.240And since then, we gathered 30 friends. We started chipping away and ultimately mastered our open record system so much that we pushed our health director to resign through the corruption that we uncovered and bipartisan support from elected officials.
00:02:58.340and you know we thought that was our big crowning moment and really what we have learned is all of
00:03:05.760that experience has led us to today. During the pandemic parents made so many discoveries
00:03:13.340peering over their kids shoulders through remote learning that our mission naturally shifted into
00:03:20.200all of these transparency issues and egregious issues that again that we've landed on today.
00:03:26.820Yeah, egregious is putting it, I think, even mildly, especially in your county in the state of Colorado. Your group put together a report highlighting 33 cases of staff sexual abuse and misconduct in Jeffco schools since just 2022.
00:03:47.920too. So can you talk about some of the patterns that you saw, how you were able to even uncover
00:03:53.280these things, report these things? Have we seen any accountability since? I'm so curious about this.
00:04:01.940Yeah. So since we put out that report, which the DOJ has shown interest in, we are now at over 37
00:04:10.560cases, and most of them occurring in 2024 and 2025. Let me give you just a small taste,
00:04:17.840Riley, of those cases to show just how egregious it is. In one case, migrant children were targeted,
00:04:25.700given fake medical exams by an employee in a school office, and were molested. And that
00:04:33.960is in going through the legal process in the courts. Another one, weapons, drugs, fentanyl
00:04:40.960were used. The Jeffco School's employee encouraged her victim to bring a gun to school and target
00:04:48.060a colleague in the midst of this sexual abuse. There was a case, a huge case that went international
00:04:55.220out of Columbine High School where a student was groomed by her teacher
00:05:00.300and ultimately whisked away to California after declaring her homeless right behind the parents'
00:05:07.660backs. So much deception in that case. And I'll share just one more. Recently, a school psychologist
00:05:13.820was charged for assaulting a child under 15, multiple charges there, originally charged with
00:05:20.480soliciting for child prostitution, and they found ketamine on him when they arrested him.
00:05:26.060In addition, he worked with another school employee in that school to purchase Plan B for one of his victims, and it goes on and on.
00:05:40.060But here's the kicker. The chief of schools, who was right under the superintendent in authority, purchased child pornography and went under investigation and then committed suicide.
00:05:55.340but through our open records requests, we discovered that he was in charge of the adult
00:06:02.080to student sexual misconduct trainings. And I share that. Yeah. Because that shows you
00:06:08.400what we're dealing with here and just how damaged our system is.
00:06:13.320Oh my gosh. It's like the, the wolf and the chicken coop analogy. What in the world are
00:06:19.160the hiring practices to allow such deviant people, deranged people, really sick people
00:06:27.080into these positions where they're ultimately affecting and impressioning and a very vulnerable
00:06:34.580population, that population being the youth, your children. Oh my gosh. So you talk about
00:06:40.920the DOJ is now being involved. What does that look like? Yeah. So the hiring practices first,
00:06:48.460you know, when the police are involved, that's when we see more accountability. But in Colorado,
00:06:54.580grooming is not considered criminal. And so we have so many misconduct cases where it doesn't
00:07:04.220rise to the level of criminals, such as grooming students. And one girl was sent a message from her
00:07:10.500bus driver. You know, you like older men and given gifts and nothing happens. Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:17.300it's every employee, every level that we're finding these cases. A little middle school
00:07:23.220girl was sent bizarre late night text messages from her English teacher. Again, nothing happens
00:07:29.860there. We have a team of legal experts and a private investigator, and we have just committed
00:07:37.520our lives to this volunteer work. But the patterns that we've discovered with these professionals is
00:07:44.040that they're basically, as they call it, passing the trash from school to school, from district to
00:07:50.300district. They're placing these students in the most at-risk schools, so they have high schools
00:07:56.160for highly at-risk students with high discipline needs. They're failing to report to the Colorado
00:08:03.020Department of Education, and so that then lacks a flag for other districts, and we're tracking them
00:08:09.880all over states. We've even tracked them in other states and other countries. It is a massive
00:08:16.100failure. It's a crisis. And one of our senators just tried to pass a bill to help ensure that
00:08:23.500reporting happens. And our legislature turned the bill down because the unions influenced that.
00:08:30.780It's so twisted, isn't it? And so you have 37 cases of some form of sexual abuse or misconduct.
00:08:38.360in, I mean, gosh, what, four years now. You have to imagine how seemingly apparent it is now.
00:08:44.880It's been going on much longer than four years, right?
00:08:48.160Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's definitely people say, you know, this has been going on. But for
00:08:53.640some reason, in those 24, 25 years, 2024, it was just building and building, incredibly disturbing.
00:09:02.560And we have seen the issues in our school district's culture that we believe have created this permissiveness around this kind of behavior.
00:09:13.860Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
00:09:16.160Maybe the link between some of these misconduct cases and the district's broader policies, especially on gender identity and obviously privacy and these trusted adults, per se, that seem to keep parents in the dark.
00:09:32.560Yeah. And, you know, overall, it's this culture of deception. That's the word we use in our
00:09:39.120mission, in all of our work. That's how we are gathering people of all perspectives.
00:09:44.460It's deception. And it took us a good two years to really push back on certain policies.
00:09:53.300The transgender equal opportunity policy is actually not equal at all. It favors the
00:09:59.800transgender students. And within that policy, there were multiple instances of explicit deception
00:10:06.260of leaving parents out of a child's transition process and deceiving them. In addition to that,
00:10:15.900we have this term that's taking hold in our school districts across the nation, and it's
00:10:22.480trusted adult. Every single one of our sexual abuse cases was a trusted adult. And that term
00:10:29.220is actually the catalyst. It's the mechanism for driving the deception. It is leading children
00:10:37.020away from their parents to selecting a trusted adult where this signage hangs above classroom
00:10:43.980doors allowing teachers to self-identify as trusted adults. Curriculum leads them to talk
00:10:50.200to trusted adults about sexual education and it basically is a parental estrangement mechanism
00:10:57.560that term. In addition, so many egregious examples, but one is a training that we discovered where
00:11:05.420they were leading teachers to rename GSA clubs so that children could attend them, you know,
00:11:12.500and having it not known by their parents. I could go on and on, but overall, it's this culture of
00:11:18.840deception, of pushing parents out, and it is real danger, real harm to real children.
00:11:25.180What does GSA stand for? These GSA clubs? What's that?
00:11:29.160That's actually a really good question. So GSA has long been known as Gay Sexual Alliance.
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00:13:55.840Now, you mentioned some of these clubs being on these, I imagine, mostly high school campuses.
00:14:03.340On the flip side of that, I think following Charlie Kirk's assassination, there was kind of
00:14:09.560a cultural revolution, if you will, even in, I mean, several blue, deeply blue counties and
00:14:15.400states where you saw young kids wanting to start like a Club America, which is kind of like a
00:14:20.160turning point chapter for high schools. Are you seeing administrative pushback when maybe pro
00:14:26.460Christian, pro conservative chapters are being, are attempted to being started by students?
00:14:34.740You know, that hasn't come up a lot. I know of students who were inspired to try to do a TPUSA chapter. It's not as common to hear about that kind of chapter, but we definitely watch for that to make sure that that is going to be respected as well.
00:14:57.060And what we always push for is these clubs need to take place after school hours when parents make the ultimate decision and have full knowledge of whether or not their children are attending.
00:15:11.340But we definitely watch for that to make sure that that every club is going to be respected, as you mentioned.
00:15:17.740Yeah. So I got to spend some time with you guys, gosh, what, maybe a year or two ago at this point.
00:15:23.420And I got to meet the parents of a young girl.
00:15:27.220I think she was 11 years old at the time who was sent on an overnight trip.
00:20:39.620You have one boy standing atop the podium or taking a roster spot or whatever, taking an opportunity, being in the locker room.
00:20:45.860that affects every single girl think of how many girls in the state of colorado play sports
00:20:50.200that's how many are displaced when you have a man at the top so to have up to 61 that is crazy
00:20:56.960numbers uh and so of course you have as i alluded to the lost opportunities but you also have fears
00:21:03.220of safety you talk about volleyball and tennis sports where you're you know jumping up spiking
00:21:09.580a ball colliding into one another where you have collision things like that you have safety
00:21:14.120concerns. And obviously the locker room, there's a total violation of, of privacy. And when you're
00:21:20.220talking about that 10, 11 year old girl sharing a bed, I think of myself at that age, you know,
00:21:27.140you're in fifth grade and, and I didn't go on overnight trips at the time because that's how
00:21:31.660timid I was to even leave my home. So being in a bed with even a girl doesn't sound overly
00:21:37.740comfortable. Um, but sharing that space with a boy, oh my gosh, if you're a parent or maybe you
00:21:44.220have younger sisters and you're listening to this, think of, think of them, uh, put your daughter or
00:21:49.860your granddaughter or your sister, uh, in their shoes. That is a, that is a crazy thing. And so
00:21:55.220anyways, have you talked to parents specifically who have experienced, uh, again, whether it's
00:22:01.380the violation of it, the lost opportunities because of these policies? Yeah. And I want to
00:22:06.600read a couple of their testimonials word for word just to show you. Yeah, so here's one. This one
00:22:13.720just really deeply hits me, the breach of privacy here. One parent reached out and said my middle
00:22:20.640school daughter was using the restroom and taking care of her female hygiene when a biological male
00:22:26.840peered over the stall. Another, my kindergartner, came home from school and told me her teacher
00:22:33.540announced that a boy in their classroom would now be using the girls bathroom I confirmed with the
00:22:39.220girls with the teacher and my daughter is uncomfortable and confused showing all ages here
00:22:45.580and here's one that really shows what everyone knows is going to happen when you just open
00:22:51.560bathrooms to males to come in freely and use the female restroom in an intimate space he said our
00:22:59.280daughter left class one day to use the restroom. She walked into the girls restroom at school to
00:23:03.820find there was a boy in the girls bathroom. They were engaged in an intimate moment, the boy and
00:23:10.020the girl. She left the restroom and went to tell an administrator that there was a boy in the girls
00:23:15.200bathroom. They have investigated and the boy who was known by students to generally identify as
00:23:21.940male told the school that he is transgender so nothing was done. And the parent who was also
00:23:28.700a Jefferson County teacher, said nowhere in any response were my concerns for my daughter's
00:23:35.120feelings or concerns for her safety and privacy in a female space addressed. And that really says it
00:23:41.700all right there. The bathroom issue, girls are standing guard. They're leaving campus to use
00:23:48.080the bathroom at home. I mean, this isn't just a culture war, Riley. This is real kids, real harm,
00:23:54.860real privacy being breached. My gosh. Yeah. You think about if the only qualification
00:24:02.020to access female spaces is to say you are a woman, think of how many people would take
00:24:08.040advantage of that. And whether it's in these high schools or middle schools even, but across the
00:24:13.900board, we see it all the time in prisons where male inmates who are often convicted of violent
00:24:20.460sexual offenses, realize that the quickest way to get into a woman's prison, which sounds awesome
00:24:25.300to a rapist, is to say, I am a woman. Well, they're doing that and they're getting access to
00:24:30.380these women in these facilities. And it's heartbreaking because these are women who
00:24:35.920oftentimes come from some sort of domestic violence background. Of course, they have their
00:24:40.700own issues, but these are bruised and battered women a lot of times. And they're being exposed
00:24:45.560to that because he has merely said he is a woman. It's wild. And these are kids we're talking about,
00:24:52.160as you said. Of course, Jeffco, they're pushing back, saying that this ruling that has come from
00:24:58.120the Department of Education really has no basis in Title IX, and that they're going to keep
00:25:03.580following state law. What's your reaction to that? And what exactly does the proposed
00:25:10.160resolution agreement require them to do, I mean, this week?
00:25:15.640Yeah, you know, they really can't hide behind state law. Now, we would have bet a lot that
00:25:21.500this would be their response to media. They're calling it erroneous. It's to be expected with
00:25:27.340Jefferson County, they will dig their heels and they will die on this hill of gender ideology.
00:25:31.980uh we so the department of ed basically outlined um that they're denying fairness and equality to
00:25:42.020females in private facilities overnight travel and sports and what they're requiring of them
00:25:48.520was a four-page document again that i was able to pull from uh open records that shows in vast
00:25:56.000detail. And so they're required to rescind and refuse policy on all of these issues,
00:26:03.720make a public statement, and post it prominently on their website. I love this, Riley. We're
00:26:10.740calling this the Riley Effect. They have to reinstate athletic awards to all females who
00:26:19.560rightfully deserved it, and issue an apology letter to those females. So again, it's very
00:26:26.340detailed. It's four pages long, but that's generally what they're requiring of them,
00:26:31.740and today's the deadline. But let me just mention this. So the Department of Ed is very clear
00:26:36.960that Title IX applies irrespective of Colorado's state law, and they are requiring Jeffco to
00:26:44.540acknowledge that and basically post that on their website. But in addition to that, we just had a
00:26:50.040settlement happen through our Colorado High School Activities Association, which governs all of the
00:26:56.120high school sporting activities in our district. And so they settled saying that they will not
00:27:04.320place penalty on any school district that wants to keep transgender students out of sports.
00:27:11.260And so they're, of course, using state law and that we call it CHASA bylaws, but really CHASA just free districts to make their own policies.
00:27:22.160And so Jeffco's hands are going to be tied, I believe, because not only that, enforcement is going to mean removing funding.
00:27:30.640And we're in a $70 million deficit in a $1.4 billion budget.
00:27:35.960They can't afford a single dollar to be taken.
00:27:39.980And so we think with this pushback that they're going to land in court, there's going to be hearings, the DOJ, again, the sexual abuse work we did with the DOJ, we hope will help here because they've already done a deep dive into Jeffco and seen how egregious it is.
00:27:58.320And they're the ones who will enforce and hopefully go to court and file an injunction.
00:28:03.000So we're just at the beginning of the ride, but boy, are we feeling relief for our kids.
00:28:07.880Yeah, I would imagine so. And you're right. When you talk about pulling federal funds, first of all, the issue of which this debate is even happening. But when you talk about pulling federal funds, I mean, these are like school lunches for kids.
00:28:24.080uh so you you would imagine that they would be on the right side of this but history has shown in
00:28:31.660other states where you can expect this to be happening uh they continue to act defiantly
00:28:38.020so we'll certainly be watching have you had any desire to maybe rebrand or take jeffco kids first
00:28:46.200kind of national because i i would imagine with the success that you've had you've had lots of
00:28:51.260parents reaching out, parents from, I'm sure, across the state, but probably from across the
00:28:56.480country who inquire, you know, how do they get something like this started in their own districts?
00:29:02.640What's maybe some practical advice you would give to them? Yeah, you know, I love that question. And
00:29:08.940I believe that the success we have had is because we have focused so locally. I love that. We have
00:29:16.160exhausted every option, every elected official, every agency that could help us locally in
00:29:22.980Colorado, and that's when we turned federally, and that's where we're receiving the help.
00:29:28.340We cannot just simply throw our hands up and say, nobody helped us, because this is safety.
00:29:33.460This is our children's privacy, and so we reached out, and luckily, they're responding.
00:29:39.720We're so incredibly grateful for that.
00:29:41.420need them to prove that Title IX does apply irrespective of these state laws in certain
00:29:46.700states. And so what I would say to parents is just start building support. You've got to
00:29:52.960advocate with facts. You have to be so focused on facts. You have to do it in a dignified manner
00:29:59.760where you're going to gain the trust of people around you, and they're going to want to support
00:30:04.460you. Our key people have been employees within Jeffco schools who bring information forward.
00:30:11.420They know that we're going to do it in a dignified way.
00:30:36.520And make real change in addition to exposing and sunlight.
00:30:41.420See, I love that you hit on focus, focus on the community locally, what's happening at the grassroot level, because I think so often people get wrapped up in what's going on in Washington, D.C.
00:30:53.540And yes, of course, it matters, especially in what's going on now in Jefferson County.
00:31:01.200And of course, you want those people on your side. But what has far more influence on your children and what they're they're digesting and learning is what's happening at the local level. So I could not encourage that enough. I think it is so important. That is how you see real impact and real change. So I'm so glad that you mentioned that even myself.
00:31:25.900I'm on our Sumner County, my county in Tennessee.
00:31:29.220I'm on our library board because I took issue with the books that were in our public libraries
00:31:51.080There's two ballot initiatives on the November ballot surrounding kind of gender ideology. Can you talk about those and maybe how Jeffco Kids was involved or what your position on these things is?
00:32:05.560Yeah, it's incredible. So there's another statewide grassroots organization called Protect Kids Colorado, and what they have accomplished is absolutely unbelievable and amazing.
00:32:19.440they uh it's never been done before but they we found our elected officials our legislature would
00:32:27.040not respond to these issues that many of them should be non-partisan bipartisan and they
00:32:33.660wouldn't even you know want to punish sex offenders as you said and so they turned to
00:32:39.620voters and they successfully gathered half a million signatures to get these initiatives on
00:32:46.980our November ballot. And one is men and women's sports and another is the gender mutilation issue.
00:32:57.600And so it's incredible what they've accomplished. But what I think is going to happen is
00:33:02.340hopefully these pass. And what it's going to show is that Colorado is not represented by
00:33:09.080our legislature. Our legislature is not responding to Colorado as a whole. The voters are going to
00:33:17.960prove it, and Colorado is going to reject this damage done to children, is what we're going to
00:33:25.300see happen, is our hope. Yeah, these ballot initiatives are really, really difficult
00:33:30.360to pull off, and so to see the success thus far in the state of Colorado,
00:33:35.720So it gives a lot of other states, I think just they feel as if there's a little cover provided there to push forward.
00:33:44.940I know we've seen it in Maine now, again, previously unsuccessful efforts.
00:33:51.780And so I think a lot of that is to thank people like you, Lindsay, and, of course, Jeffco Kids first.
00:33:57.040So thank you for your tireless advocacy, you know, starting a lot of this stuff back in the COVID era.
00:34:04.580It was a totally different time. It was a lot what it felt, at least speaking personally, it felt a lot more consequential then in 2020, 2021 to say what you guys were saying, as opposed to now in 2026, where I think it's becoming easier to say things like men can't be women and vice versa.
00:34:26.060and that you are the arbiter of your child.
00:34:30.760You don't have to co-parent with the government.
00:34:32.960I think it's becoming easier to say those things,
00:35:41.040Well, that support system, it makes a huge difference.
00:35:44.580When you have other people you can lean on, maybe people who have gone through similar things.
00:35:48.120So highly encourage if you're listening, watching right now, go to www.jeffcokidsfirst.com support if you can, because sure it's an investment, but there are few things more worthy of an investment than your kids and their future. So thank you, Lindsay.