Parents of children who attend Gullet Elementary School in Austin, Texas were in for a surprise last week as a costumed adult handed out plastic Easter eggs filled with candy and a little something-something else. Imagine their surprise when some children opened their plastic eggs and found condoms.

A Professor of Government at UT-Austin tweeted that a parent showed up at his kids’ elementary school and relayed the incident.

A parent showed up at my kids' elementary school dressed as an Easter Bunny during pickup. He handed out eggs, mostly filled with candy. Some with unopened condoms. Not sure this is the Austin weird I signed up for.

— Nathan Jensen (@NateMJensen) April 15, 2022

It happened during pickup at the end of the school day. Allegedly, a mom, who is a pharmacist, was already dressed up as a bunny from a safe-sex presentation at a nearby clinic. She stayed in the costume when she went to pick up her second grader. “Chaos ensued”, she said. Naturally the children swarmed her as she began handing out plastic Easter eggs. She said she quickly ran out of the eggs and called her husband to bring over more. She threw her husband under the bus and blamed him for “grabbing the wrong eggs.”

The parent was asked to leave but she simply moved to the public sidewalk and continued to pass out the plastic eggs.

Principal Tammy Thompson sent out a letter to parents to explain the event was not planned or sanctioned by the school. The letter made a point to describe the condoms as “unopened” and that officials spoke with the parent about the “inappropriate nature of their activity.” The school district is reviewing safety protocols.

“We are working to review our safety protocols to ensure this does not happen again,” a district spokesperson told KXAN. “It was an incredibly careless and inappropriate action of a parent.”

This whole story is off-putting, especially given the ages of the children, but am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that the principal mentioned the condoms were unopened?

This woman’s child is a second grade student. She’s a professional working woman in the pharmaceutical sector. I’m not sure why she was doing a safe sex presentation but once she was at the school, she should have had the common sense to let the school administrators know she was outside in costume. Schools are usually very diligent about people on campus, and in this case she was in costume and indistinguishable. You notice the professor who tweeted about it called her a “he”. The person in a costume could have been anyone, including a sexual predator. Did other parents who were around know what was happening? It’s just a very weird story, especially when she just went to the sidewalk and continued doing what she was doing.

Under normal circumstances this would just be a simple story of a parent making a simple mistake and delivering the wrong batch of plastic eggs. However, the article goes on to say that Austin Independent School District is currently updating it human sexuality curriculum. Was the mother making some kind of statement? We aren’t told if any of the eggs she handed out originally contained condoms and even if that didn’t happen, surely she knew the ones at home did. Why didn’t she alert her husband to that fact when she asked him to bring more eggs?

Currently, the youngest students in Austin ISD aren’t even learning anything related to “human sexuality and responsibility.” K-2 lessons are on hold as the district works to revise lessons based on recent legislation.

Austin ISD (AISD) is in the process of updating its human sexuality and responsibility curriculum as a whole. The district’s program provides information and skill development for students in kindergarten through grade 12. Instruction is given annually in November and December for elementary and middle school students.

The sad part is how easy it is to think the worst of what happens in public schools these days. The pandemic shed a spotlight on how parents are deceived about what their children may be learning in school. The state government of Virginia literally flipped from one party’s control to the other party over topics like CRT and battles over bathrooms. After concerned parents were labeled as terrorists by our government at the request of teacher unions and what we’ve seen at school board meetings, it’s no wonder there is a lack of trust in school administrations. It seems as though nothing is too crazy to happen.

The up side is that Governor DeSantis has raised the issue of what is and isn’t appropriate for very young school children when it comes to sexual education. AISD is reviewing its curriculum. Do we think that would be happening at this time if the story about the Florida law hadn’t made national news?