Texas mom Laura Maria Gruber always 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,” according to the school’s web site.
But she never thought her 13-year-old would 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 at school, Mom, and 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 in class and posing as hookers, I almost crashed the car.”
The September incident was so disturbing, Gruber said, she pulled her daughter from the school and demanded an apology from administrators.
Gruber, 45, a Latina from Puerto Rico, found out the game was called “Bear-Hooker-Hunter” and went online, discovering it is an adult drinking game version of rock-paper-scissors.
As part of the game, Gruber said her daughter and the other seventh graders in the Social Emotional Learning class at KIPP Poder Academy had to pair up and stand in the front of the room.
The kids were then told to strike poses — either as a hunter, pointing an imaginary gun at each other; as a scary bear with its paws up, or as a “seducing hooker,” with a hand on one hip and another behind their ear, the distraught mom said.
The goal of the game was unclear other than being some sort of “team building” exercise, said Gruber, who felt the game sexualized the children.
The boys and girls 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 can imagine what kind of people are coming out of universities now to teach our kids,” Gruber said.
“My daughter was so grossed out and embarrassed,” she added. “She said the boys and the teacher were laughing.
“Another little girl in the class had been sexually assaulted, so the experience was especially cringe for her.”
Gruber pulled her daughter out of the school a week later but was determined to lodge a protest with the school administrators, a laborious and frustrating process, she said.
“I really feel like I’ve been had,” Gruber said. “I wanted my child to go to this school for the diversity and trusted them. But I didn’t realize it would involve sexual diversity and kids being sexualized.
“The worst part is that this school is in the inner city and San Antonio is well known as being a child 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 did not learn about Gruber’s complaint about the game until the board issued the apology.
The response was too little, too late, Gruber said.
KIPP admitted the game occurred as described, according to paperwork from the school seen by The Post.
Despite having kids pose as “seducing hookers,” four levels of KIPP administration — School Principal Stephanie Lee, Deputy Superintendent Jeremy Gray, Regional Superintendent Allen Smith and KIPP Texas CEO Sehba Ali — denied the game sexualized children.
“While we always chase excellence as a core value, sometimes we stumble,” Lee wrote in a Feb. 16 letter to school families.
The principal admitted, however, that the “game Bear-Hooker-Hunter….did not meet our bar of excellence.”
“This game was not part of any KIPP curriculum, and it was not appropriate for students,” she wrote. “Any activities with actions or words like ‘hooker’ or ‘seduce’ should never have a place in our schools. While the intent was never to sexualize a child, I recognize that the impact may have caused students to feel uncomfortable or traumatized. That does not honor the respect we aim to teach our students at all times; in truth, it is degrading.”
“The term ‘hooker’ is an unkind word and not one you should use or repeat,” the principal said in the letter.
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