Traverse City Area Public Schools on Monday confirmed the appointment of a Planned Parenthood employee to help lead its Sex Ed Advisory Board.

Carrie Ullery-Smith, a community outreach educator at Planned Parenthood of Michigan, was approved by TCAPS trustees in a vote of 6-1 to co-chair the district’s state-mandated Sex Ed Advisory Board, despite concerns from some trustees and the public, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reports.

“It’s my understanding that she is probably a very good educator, but she still comes from a specific perspective and it sort of seemed to me a conflict of interest,” TCAPS Trustee Beth Pack said Monday after convincing the board to move Ullery-Smith’s confirmation from the consent agenda to debate.

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Pack likened Ullery-Smith’s appointment to “having RJR Tobacco representative chair a public hospital’s lung cancer board.”

Board President Scott Newman-Bale noted Ullery-Smith was the only person nominated to co-chair the 22-member advisory board. Co-chairs lead the committee for a two-year term.

One resident who attended the meeting questioned an apparent shift in “sex ed for social change and inclusivity” through an “agenda pushed” on students.

“I wonder how educating our kids about LGBTQ or DEI is improving them academically,” she said.

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Others suggested pro-life folks should be equally represented on the sex ed board.

“It’s not appropriate for an employee of an organization such as this to have influence on our youth in our schools,” Nicole Hooper said. “Secondly, it’s not appropriate to teach sexual diversity to our youth.”

Trustee Holly Bird suggested those concerns are unwarranted because stat law sets content and topics discussed by the board, according to the Record-Eagle.

“I think the subjects that people are concerned about are not something that can even be considered under state policy or law during those conversations, so I don’t want to be in the position of second-guessing the committee who knows what they’re doing – and they’ve done a very good job,” she said.

“They made a recommendation that they all stand by, including those conservative cross members and clergy and physicians,” Bird said.

The discussion in Traverse City followed others in Lansing during the recent lame duck session over attempts to push a progressive rewrite of sex education in Michigan schools.

House Bill 6068, sponsored by House LGBTQ+ Caucus member Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia, and Rep. Rachel Hood, D-Grand Rapids, aimed to do away with the description of abstinence as “a positive lifestyle for unmarried young people,” lift a ban on distributing condoms and birth control in schools, and require affirmative recognition “that individuals have different sexual orientations and gender identities and, when discussing or providing examples of relations, be inclusive of various gender relationships,” The Detroit News reported.

“It introduces sensitive topics like gender identity, sexual orientation, and reproductive rights, which many parents feel are completely inappropriate for young students,” Rep. Jamie Greene, R-Richmond, who served as House Education Committee co-chair last year, told the news site. “It pushes a curriculum that could directly conflict with the values and beliefs families work hard to instill in their children.”

Ullery-Smith’s employer strongly supported HB 6068, which ultimately died in committee.

“We’re calling on the MI Legislature to pass this important bill so public school students are equipped with the information and skills they need to protect themselves!” Michigan Planned Parenthood Advocates posted to X when the bill was introduced in mid-November.

The legislation in unlikely to resurface in the new legislative session that began this month, as voters in November ended the state’s first Democratic government trifecta in 40 years.

A Republican majority took control of the House on Jan. 8, with a promise to end Democrats’ “radical agenda” in Lansing.

“Clearly Michigan spoke, and we had a major overturn in a lot of school boards as well just on the transgender issue,” Greene told the Daily Wire. “We’re exploiting children for political gain and for a political ideology that has just taken off in the last couple of years and is not what most people in our country or even in the world actually believe.”