Parent Alert! Disturbing Prom Trend, Illinois Schools Investigated

Today is May 6th, 2026. We have got some headlines this week. Oh yes we do. Starting off with a disturbing prom outfit trend involving Charlie Kirk's voice. That made the rounds on TikTok. Next we got Illinois public schools are being investigated for secret gender ideology lessons. And last but not least, I have a personal issue with how some people are now recognizing Mother's Day. Let's talk about it on Parent Alert right now. Being killed. Counting or not counting gang violence. Great. Counting or not counting gang violence. Great. Counting or not counting gang violence. Great. And the comments are worse. This young woman posted the video and somebody responded by saying, I'm dying like Charlie Kirk. And she liked the comment and replied by saying, she thinks it's funny. Someone responded to another video saying, this is so funny, OMFG. To which the girl replied, best transition I could find. Yeah, not a song, not anything else. The audio of somebody being assassinated. That's the best thing she could find. I wrestled with whether to share this or not the week. I really wrestled with whether or not to share this or not this week because I despise giving evil a platform. But this is Parent Alert. And this is for us parents. And we need to face this kind of despicable epidemic with young people head on. So with that, welcome to Parent Alert. I'm Jill Simonian from PragerU Kids. I am here every Wednesday at 10.30am Pacific time on PragerU's Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and X later. Of course, if you've been around here for the last couple months, you know that this episode is going to be later shared on our website over at PragerU.com. So first and foremost, before I address that clip I just shared, drop me a comment. Tell me where you're watching from. If you haven't already subscribed, remember PragerUKids.com. Subscribe for free for educational and entertaining short videos and lessons for kindergarten through 12th grade, history, civics, good character, financial literacy and more. Okay, let's go back to that first clip that we kicked off this episode with. The clip I just shared was from an account on TikTok called The Moderate Case. This influencer happens to be conservative. If you follow him, you probably are already aware of his commentary that he offered regarding this horrible trend that was going viral on TikTok with teens. The Moderate Case offered very thoughtful, rational commentary about this TikTok trend that has been using Charlie Kirk's voice with teens doing a prom outfit change using the audio from when Charlie Kirk was murdered. Listen, as a mom, I don't want to spend a ton of time on this because the whole thing kind of speaks for itself in my opinion, but I will ask you first, if your teens are on social media, ask your teens if they saw this on TikTok. Talk to them about inhumanities. And here's another, here's a question, big question regarding this clip. I thought that all of our schools now had this social emotional wellness program initiatives, you know, throughout all the schools that encouraged kindness and inclusion and safe space sensitivity training. And then you have clips like this going viral on TikTok. Note to school administrators with all of the kindness and sensitivity training, the kindness and sensitivity trainings don't seem to be working in schools if this is what teens are creating and this is what's going viral. This is despicable. This is an epidemic. And there's a part of me that kind of also would bet that many of these exact teens who took part in these videos maybe are involved in their peer counseling at schools or they might be the first ones, you know, stereotypically speaking, these are probably the kids to shout equity and kindness or everyone is welcome here or this is a safe space. If all of these social emotional kindness initiatives are leading to this kind of content where kids do prom outfit changes and put the audio of someone being murdered and then it goes viral, maybe it's time to cut the kindness initiatives at schools because they aren't working. They aren't creating kindness. They aren't creating sensitivity. They aren't creating emotional wellness. Apparently TikTok has been removing some of this content and I guess I think it's very hard to find it now. And listen, I want to hear what you think. I myself consider myself a free speech advocate, sometimes a free speech absolutist saying, you know, you either accept all free speech or you're not an advocate for free speech. But this trend is proving to be an example that I'm actually okay with removing despicable stuff like this online because it desecrates the human spirit. It desecrates a basic moral code that should be shared between all of us, young and old, no matter what skin color, no matter what difference of opinion, nothing. What used to be an understanding between people that you just don't do certain things out of a moral code and decency is now gone. It's sad. On to one of our headlines. One of the things that you shouldn't do secretly also is teach other people's kids things that their parents aren't aware of or have not consented to. Drop me a comment if you're watching live right now on YouTube and Facebook. I am going to address comments later in this episode. I want to know if you saw that viral TikTok using the audio from Charlie Kirk's murder with prom outfit change videos. Okay, to our headline. Many schools in Illinois are being investigated. This was a headline on News Nation this last week, dated May 2nd. The headline is, and it's on all sorts of outlets, but this was the headline on News Nation. 36 Illinois schools investigated by DOJ for sexuality and gender ideology in classes. And the article that I discovered this story on reads, three dozen school districts across the state, including some in central Illinois, are under formal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. The DOJ announced on Thursday of last week that it is investigating whether these school districts included sexual orientation and gender ideology content in any class for pre-k through 12th grade students and whether parents have been notified of their right to opt their children out of this instruction. The investigation will also assess whether the districts limit access to single-sex intimate spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms and girls sports teams based on biological sex. So from the organization Awake Illinois, from their Instagram, here are the districts being investigated. And you can find this, you know, online if you Google it. It's listed in, you know, virtually every single article that addresses this. If you're watching right now, I want you to look at the graphic that we're about to show you to see if your district is listed. There are 30, and we can start rolling the graphic now, 36 districts in Illinois are being investigated by the Department of Justice. And they include Atwood Heights School District, Bloomington Public Schools. I'm just, I'm not going to name all of them. I just kind of want you to look and see these different schools. Country Club Hills, Elmwood Park, Gillespie Community Unit School District, Iroquois County Community Unit School District, Lyons, Martinsville, North Chicago. I'm not reading all of these. This is just sort of a mattering of them that I'm, that names that I'm plucking. Oak Lawn Hometown School District, Ridgeview Community Unit School District, Tamaroa School District, Will County School District, 36 school districts in Illinois. Again, these districts are being investigated because of tips from parents and organizations who are rightfully obsessed with transparency, saying these school districts taught gender identity and gender ideology in classrooms without parental consent. Organizations that have boots on the ground parents and teachers informing them, trying to bring full transparency to what's happening behind classroom doors. Awake Illinois is an organization that has very much been involved in this fight. And I want to share with you a quote from the Awake Illinois founder, Shannon Adcock, regarding this particular investigation that the DOJ is now conducting into these 36 school districts in Illinois. Shannon Adcock says the DOJ's launch of investigations into 36 Illinois school districts for pushing gender ideology in pre-k through 12th grade classrooms without proper parental notification is a huge win for parental rights and child protection. And that was a quote from Shannon Adcock. She told the Daily Wire, for years, and I continue the quote, groups like Awake Illinois have been on the front lines demanding transparency, opt-out rights, and adherence to Title IX, protecting single sex spaces, girls sports, and biological reality in our schools. Every district under scrutiny should immediately restore parental authority and biological fairness. We won't stop until our kids' schools prioritize truth, safety, and parental involvement over ideology. And that is, in fact, a quote from Shannon Adcock of Awake Illinois. And I will, you know, again, I ask, and if you're from Illinois, drop me a comment, tell me if your school district is involved, tell me your opinion, even if you think this is, maybe if you're having a hard time believing it, or you think that there's a plot twist in the story that we're missing somehow, I want you to drop me a comment. But my question is, there used to be a time, pre, I'm going to say pre-2020, I think we can all generally remember as parents, when schools were shouting, and begging, and asking parents, get involved, connect with the teachers, connect with your admin, connect with your school board, help us in the classroom, parents, we want you involved. There was a time when teacher and parent partnerships were valued, and appreciated, and sought, and championed, and celebrated. And that is no longer the case because we see such a radicalization of our education system through the teachers unions, unfortunately. Go to the teachers unions, you can see where their political affiliations and overwhelming donations to certain political causes lie. The majority of their union dues go to very radicalized political causes. That's another parent alert, I've talked about it now many times. But again, back to Illinois. One example that brought on this investigation from the DOJ into Illinois schools, one example comes from the organization Awake Illinois. And I want to give you some background. Back in 2023, Awake Illinois shared information from a parent in the Oregon Community Unit School District 220. And this is one of the school districts that is in fact listed on the DOJ's investigation list. Awake Illinois shared information from a parent in the Oregon Community Unit School District 220, bringing evidence that a fifth grade teacher organized a secret LGBTQ lunch club as early as October 2022 in her classroom. The meetings continued for several weeks, allegedly building up to about 40 students in the fifth and sixth grades. No parents or guardians were notified during this time. This is just one incident of the 36 schools that are being investigated that Awake Illinois caught a couple few years ago. The teacher at the time referred to these secret meetings where 40 kids were in her class and she's allegedly talking about gender ideology issues. She referred to these as safe space meetings. Again, the question that I continue to ask, when did adults keeping secrets from children's parents become okay? It wasn't okay 30 years ago. It wasn't okay five years ago. And it's still not okay. It never was okay. It's not okay now. And it's not going to ever be okay no matter how much someone tries to twist the meaning of the word kindness and try to sell that this type of subversive activity is inclusive. It's a lie. AwakeIllinois.com has all the receipts and evidence on this, on their website, all the documents, all the files, all the transparent, the receipts, as the kids say nowadays. If you go to AwakeIll.com, you can see all of the evidence from one of these 36 school districts that is now being investigated for secret gender ideology lessons without parental consent. And I want to take this a step further. If you look up the Awake Illinois founder's ex-account, her name is Shannon Adcock. Her quote was shared with you just a few minutes ago. Her ex-account is at Shannon, and I'm going to spell it out for you right now, S-H-A-N-N-O-N underscore A underscore I-L. She recently shared that the official and authentic personal health and safety and sexual health education instructor training materials for K-12 schools, Chicago Public Schools. This is on her ex-account from the last few days. I encourage you to look it up. The sexual health education instructional materials for teachers for Chicago Public Schools, I looked them up. I scrolled through her thread that she had. She has the documents. She has the original source material that the teachers are using to get trained on how to teach sexual health in Chicago. Totally inappropriate, to say the least. Go look at Shannon Adcock's ex-account. Go look at what Chicago Public Schools are expecting teachers to discuss and distribute to minors. Gender ideology is introduced in kindergarten in these teacher instructional materials. The gender unicorn and snow person is introduced in the fourth grade, which is about age nine. The Chicago Public Schools sexual health teacher training materials that Shannon Adcock shared on her ex-account, the documents that I have seen, I label them as predatory. And I feel so sorry for any and all teachers in Chicago Public Schools who have been delivered these documents and instructed to talk to the age-inappropriate and predatory topics with children in their classrooms. Humiliating, age-inappropriate, disgusting, not okay. Especially without parental consent. So there's a lot going on in Chicago. If you're in Chicago, tell me what's happening in your neck of the woods, in your neighborhood. Maybe your school was on the list of 36 schools being investigated right now. And again, this is an investigation. I hope they find nothing. I hope and pray. I hope and pray that the Department of Justice finds absolutely nothing. But unfortunately, based on my experience and knowledge with what I see firsthand in original documents and source teacher materials, I don't think they're going to find nothing. I think they're going to find a lot of how can schools get away with this. Side note about Illinois that's a little bit hopeful. I don't want to leave us doom and gloom if you are in Illinois or the Chicago area. Side note about Illinois that's a little bit hopeful that I'm just kind of throwing in here because I just learned about it the other night. This last week, there was a huge legal win for a Christian mom who I happen to know personally and who I am in contact with periodically. Five years ago, this Christian mom questioned and in the Chicago public school district questioned and criticized a fourth grade teacher in her district via a letter she wrote outlining her concerns about this teacher including equity and radicalized anti-racist teachings to the board of education and school district. The teacher found out that this mom had written this letter. It was a very exhaustive letter to my understanding detailing specifics about what was going on in the classroom that was age inappropriate and anti-American and divisive for children in the fourth grade. The teacher found out that this parent had voiced her concerns to school board and the school district and the teacher sued the mom for voicing concerns and speaking out. This lawsuit against this Christian mother exercising her freedom of speech rights, the lawsuit went on for five years. The mom, needless to say, fought ongoing defamation and lies against her and invasion of privacy into her family because she had expressed concerns as a parent with the fundamental right to raise and educate her own child. The judge dismissed the case that this teacher brought against this Christian mom recently. This is a big win for Illinois. It's a big win for Illinois parents who are voicing concerns and the decision signaled that speaking out about school issues is protected speech and it's protected activity. So amidst all of the disappointing and disturbing things that are going on in Illinois schools regarding gender ideology, inappropriate sexual health lessons that no teacher should ever be required to discuss with minors, you know given the investigations this little beam of light shined in Illinois last week and that you know it really gives all of us hope. It gives all of us hope that the constitutional right for parents to direct the raising and upbringing of our own children is in fact valid in public schools. That right does not stop at classroom doors. So thank you for that. Let's go to the comments. I'm going to try this you guys. Let's go to the comments. Let's see. Okay I am on. I'm on YouTube right now. Oh my goodness. Someone is saying no sound, no sound, no sound. Let's see. Let me see what I can. Why is it so quiet? The volume is too low. Maybe you had to turn your volume. Let's see. I am looking for why are we teaching trans in schools to start with. Let's see. Joanne says yes never okay right on Jill. Thank you for that Joanne. I want to see. I want to go to Facebook now and see out of curiosity if you if there's anyone from Illinois. If you are from Illinois, I want you to share with me what is happening and if your school district was one of the 36 that is being investigated. Let's see. Let's see if we are live on Facebook. This is let me see. This is what I said yeah I'll go on and address the comments. This is what happens when you ask the talent to address the comments. I can't I cannot find the video on Facebook. Oh man. Hold on. Let me see. Where's the live video? Oh here we are. Okay guys. Okay. Do you really want free speech? Joseph. Yes I do want free speech. Okay. Bonnie. Teachers union is governmental education. Illinois has a centralized communist socialist style state governing ruling body calling themselves democrats as many other states seem to follow this belief of sole sovereignty rights disregarding the rest of the fact that they are one of 50 United States and they exist as the wholes. The sovereignty is the whole United States of America and its citizens within all 50 states. So what happens there does concern everyone else. It does concern everyone else. Here's a question. What can parents do to combat what's happening in the public schools with teachers and faculty pushing gender transition ideology? Okay. What can parents do? We can't shy away. We can't shy away. It's a hard conversation. It's an uncomfortable conversation. But we cannot shy away from inviting people teachers admin school board members and school districts. We cannot shy away from saying listen I have concerns my son or daughter came home saying that the teacher was discussing xyz in the classroom. This goes against our family values and religious beliefs. This goes against what what education and knowledge should be. This is not educating children. We need to not shy away from asking questions of our public school teachers administrators. We need to not shy away. What do you say this from William? What do you say to people who claim that PragerU is politicizing education as a right-wing tool like the left does? That's a good question William. We're often attacked. Here's what I say. Go and watch all of our videos. Go and watch the PragerU kids videos. Now I know that many people will google PragerU kids and the same three plucked 15 second sound bites come out and are heavily critiqued. And watch the whole video. Watch the entire video for the full context of the full message and the full history lesson and take into consideration what age group that video was made for. I'm trying to read what can parents do to combat. What do you think about the Charlie Kirk prom trend? That was a question that PragerU the PragerU team actually dropped in this. If you watch from the top of this video we saw that prom outfit trend that was absolutely despicable. If you did not tune in at the top I encourage you to tune in now. Okay let's thank you for your comments. I'm going to get good at scrolling comments one day. This is the first day. All right let's go ahead. Oh I have a big launch I have to tell you about for PragerU kids. We have a big launch this week and it's in the form of this book. It's a chapter book for middle readers 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, maybe even 8th grade. PragerU kids has a huge launch this week just in time for summer reading. Plan for your tweens right now. This is the second installment of our chapter book series The Chronicles of Jonathan Spencer. This is called The Pivot. Of course we know that the first book in this series was The Tip-Off The Chronicles of Jonathan Spencer book one. This is the second installment of the series called The Pivot. So The Tip-Off if you don't know and this I believe was a bestseller on Amazon right? Yes. Okay drop me a comment if your kids have watched this. So The Tip-Off is all about this middle schooler Jonathan Spencer who is a little bit awkward. He joins the basketball team. He's trying to find his place on the team. This book was an introduction to who Jonathan is. It was about him trying to find his place, trying to find his role, where he fits in. It's about resilience, lessons about friendship, how parents are our primary leaders. Yes how many books nowadays champion parents as the primary leaders? The second book The Pivot goes deeper into Jonathan's character and listen we've had a ton of middle schoolers read these books and from their mouths to you they actually really like them. They like them. They like them. They like them. The Pivot continues Jonathan's story and in this story Jonathan is going to a basketball summer camp and he learned a lot of lessons in the previous book you know during the school year and now he's at a summer basketball camp and he actually is put through a little bit more. He's put through more challenges. He has to deal with some family hardship. One of his siblings is ill. He has to deal with the bully from the first book who, spoiler alert, actually apologizes to him in this book and he learns lots of lessons and one of the things that I want to and here's you know you could see the font it's for it's a true middle reader. I would say this is for maybe like a sixth grader sixth grader and the thing about this book it's a chapter book. It's fiction. It's entertaining but shares the values that we want our kids to recognize and live through their own lives. One thing that is interesting in this the Pivot that I want to point out it's after this chat it's after every few chapters there is a what do you think discussion prompt and it's a series of questions to get your kids thinking with or without you. Question number one here what do you think in these chapters coach Mack teaches Jonathan about the Pivot. How can a Pivot help a player handle pressure on the court and how might this idea connect to Jonathan's life more generally? And then question number two coach Mack directly names Jonathan's real problem. What advice does coach give Jonathan and why is this important? Jonathan finally succeeds with the Pivot drill after struggling with it. Why is this such an important moment for him? So good questions for kids to consider for you for us the parents to go through with our kids and talk about these story points and how they apply to real life. There's very few chapter books like this that really share values and we are so proud of this book and happy with this book and one of our you know we're also happy to say one of our this is sort of the this is these are the babies of one of our credentialed teachers with a master in history that works here in house and he is just really you know he's just done a fabulous job with these books and and we appreciate it so much and he's a big basketball fan he used to be a basketball coach at school so yay get the tip off get the pivot on amazon now the links are in the description and and here's the deal i'm a big believer in classical literature but i'm also a believer as a mom that we need to kids need to mix up their reading and just have fun reads that they can sit back and relax you know when kids are reading classical lit it does that mental gymnastics it requires them to do mental gymnastics in their brain so that their brain grows and stretches and becomes more knowledgeable and more able to absorb information but then sometimes and particularly for summer kids also need to mix it up and just have fun with books that share values um to to basically just allow them to rediscover their love of reading if that love of reading has in fact waned at all which happens many times especially during the tween years right so the bundle is available now i believe there is an audio book of the tip off and the pivot on spotify so it is a great for a read aloud read along to help your kids with understanding and attention um really great we're really excited about it the pivot and the tip off get them now as a bundle deal and enjoy them okay now before we go before we go i need to do a little itty bitty thing about mother's day right first of all love and applause for all the moms out there um but i need to do a little rant about it because it continues to happen and this is a trend that i noticed last year in my email inbox i got all sorts of emails from places that i would shop from citing if you'd like to opt out of mother's day please click this box we understand that mother's day can be a very difficult time for some i listen the emails and the social media posts that and tell me in the comments if you've received any of these that encourage people to opt out of mother's day to create a safe space around them to you know all of these things aren't we tired of this i can't stand that if you'd like to opt out of mother's day emails and advertising i get it mother's day can be very difficult for many people me included if you know me personally my mother rest in peace for eight years now mother's day is not the same as it was prior to eight years ago it's difficult i myself have been in a very challenged bad mood for the last 10 days because mother's day is coming and as an adult you cope with all the emotions with your own kids with your own family missing your own mom so yeah mother's day can be hard however it is life it is life we cannot continue to encourage people to just offload all of our coping muscles and create a society that cannot deal with anything if it does not personally speak to you anymore we can't do this we can't do this i mean the thing about mother's day most of it most of what i see online is celebratory and loving and honoring mothers but the past few years i have seen an influx influx of all of these posts saying opt out and you know be sensitive when you wish someone a happy mother's day because mother's day is is complicated okay let's just stop the safe space sensitivity we have lost our ability as human beings to cope we have to cope everything is going to be okay cope with it and the more we encourage adults to just opt out and shield yourself it bleeds into our children and then you're raising a generation of kids who can't cope with anything and they feel like every you're you're you're cultivating an atmosphere where if it doesn't personally speak to you on an individual level then you can't deal with it that's ridiculous so with that i'm going to share the episode that we created five years ago to encourage our children to honor mother's day and the meaning behind mother's day and why it's important to honor mother's day this is from otto's tales roll the clip rough i'm otto it's a beautiful spring day i barked even better it's mother's day exclaimed dennis we should get my mom something special to show how much we love her but i'm not sure what to get let's meet a couple of great moms i suggested maybe they'll help us pick out a gift great idea said dennis this can be our time machine i barked pointing at dennis's wagon we got into the wagon and pretended it was a car then zoom away we drove traveling so far okay so there we go that was the very first part of our otto's tales today is mother's day episode we also have a book that goes along with it on amazon the links i believe for the episode in the book will be in the description but we created this episode because trendy society has now devalued mother's day it's you know i don't want to say it's it's discredited the importance of honoring moms it's discredited the importance of becoming a mom and being a mom and you know we're we need to restore what the what it means to be a mother in america these days and we need to share with our children the value and the importance of becoming a mother and so that is for our youngest learners kindergarten through second grade and the goes in it and you know it visits different mothers in history and how through raising their children helped shape a nation abigail adams is one of those mothers that we highlighted in the today is mother's day episode it's really a sweet episode um so with that i want to say happy mother's day to all the moms even if the holiday is hard for you honor what mother's day means in your own life in our nation for our children together teach our children what it means to be a mother we've run out of time that's it for us on parent alert subscribe to pragerukids.com for free new releases delivered to your inbox every single week for your kids don't miss an episode u.s and world history american values good character civics financial literacy and more thank you for your support for prager you kids we cannot do this without you again links to the releases that i shared with you in the description beneath this video god bless you all see you next time on parent alert