Emails reveal fallout from foreign film crew's presence at Keller High School
Dozens of emails obtained by CBS News Texas show the fallout in the days after a foreign film crew entered a Keller ISD high school without permission.
It began Jan. 18, when trustee Sandi Walker received an email from a researcher for the Evangelical Broadcasting Channel in the Netherlands regarding a program called "God, Jesus, Trump!"
The email said a film crew was coming to Texas to "look specifically at the WOKE agenda" with plans to "zoom in on (the) gender transition situation - in sports and public bathroom use." The researcher said they wanted to hear from someone conservative on "the importance of faith, especially in regards to what young children have to read in school."
Walker responded with an email agreeing to meet, saying "I too want to glorify God as well."
Three weeks later, on Feb. 9, at Keller's Central High School, while the principal was out of the office, and the district says it was unaware a film crew visited the campus with Walker.
A second trustee, Micah Young, later joined them.
"I thought maybe somebody had won an award," said Elizabeth Mitias, an engineering teacher who saw them in a hallway. "I saw Ms. Walker with a camera, you know, trying to go into one of the special ed rooms."
Another teacher, Megan Vogt, wrote in an email that she was interviewed and "asked many pointed questions about which books we used in the school and how they were selected… I was even pointedly asked if I felt the students were vulnerable to books."
"I explained my students are 17 and 18 years of age, so it was unlikely they were exposed to things in books they had not already encountered in real life," she wrote.
"The entire situation was awkward and off-putting," Vogt said, saying the crew spent time with the students "just filming them reading."
After learning the crew did not have permission from the district to film as she'd been led to believe, Vogt said she became concerned for her "personal safety and the fact that anything I might have been filmed saying could be used to support a particular political agenda."
Nearly a dozen parents wrote the district livid over the filming of children without consent.
"Why was student safety compromised?" one asked.
Laney Hawes said when he son spotted the camera crew in the cafeteria, he asked if they needed to give consent to be filmed.
"Everyone just laughed," wrote Hawes.
"I signed a document restricting use of my child's picture/video," wrote a parent.
Another asked for reassurance that their child "not (be) featured in any way possible, even in the background."
Yet another said she now worries "random strangers will be allowed access to (her child) because of a board member's personal agenda."
In response to those emails, the district and board members apologized and promised to investigate. The filmmakers have released a statement confirming their presence at the high school and saying no students will be recognizable in their film.
Walker, meanwhile, resigned from her position on the school board nine days after her interview at the school. Trustee Micah Young has not resigned, despite calls to do so.