 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 27, 2025
Contact:
McKenna Gregg (OPI)
Kyle Schmauch (Legislature)
Senate President, State Superintendent Announce Legislation to End Woke Teacher Conferences
Hedalen Investigating Professional Development Providers for Compliance with Existing Laws
HELENA, Mont.— Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Susie Hedalen today announced legislation to end the practice of Montana teachers receiving educational credit for their participation in conferences promoting extreme leftist ideology and classroom indoctrination.
Their legislative push follows reporting that exposed seminars promoting radical gender ideology, DEI, nude child photography, and sexually explicit books at the Montana Federation of Public Employees’ 2025 Educator Conference that took place October 16-17 at Big Sky High School in Missoula.
“I want to thank President Regier for his leadership in introducing the bill to end state-mandated PIR days for union meetings,” Hedalen said. “Montana parents have made it clear they want classrooms that teach, not indoctrinate. Our schools exist to educate children, not to serve as platforms for political activism or social experimentation. When taxpayer dollars fund ‘professional development’ that celebrates sexually explicit books, defends nude images of minors as ‘art,’ and promotes gender ideology to young children, something has gone deeply wrong. The days of hiding ideology behind professional development are over. Randi Weingarten and her cronies are not welcome in Montana.”
“Holdover” state senators not up for reelection before the next legislative session can request legislation at any time. Regier formally reserved a bill title late last week to “revise education laws related to teacher training and education and meetings of teacher organizations” during the Legislature’s next session in 2027 (see screenshot attached). Regier’s bill title is the very first to be reserved for the 2027 legislative session.
Regier and Hedalen plan to model the legislation after House Bill 557 from the 2025 legislative session. That bill, which was sponsored by Rep. Jodee Etchart, R-Billings, and narrowly failed, was brought in response to MFPE’s 2024 teacher conference that similarly featured troubling programming on progressive activism, LGBTQ+ issues, DEI training, and electoral politics, all funded by Montana taxpayers. Each of those sessions was given by political activists with a progressive or left-leaning orientation.
“Montana has been closing schools and paying teachers for two days every year to attend this conference in order to develop professionally and better serve their students. But instead of learning how to instruct students on core skills and prepare them for life, these conferences have been indoctrinating teachers with leftist political extremism,” Regier said.
“We’re done seeing Montanans’ property taxes, which pay for teachers to attend this conference, go towards the promotion of ‘gender unicorns’ and sneaking sexually explicit books into school libraries,” Regier continued. “In the next legislative session, we’re going to pass a law that tax dollars and educational credits can only go to conferences that instruct teachers on things like core curriculum classroom education.”
According to recorded audio and testimony of people who attended MFPE’s 2025 conference, Montana teachers were subjected to presentations that included:
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An NEA employee promoting their six LGBTQ modules and “gender unicorn” (which includes discussion of physical sexual attraction) to educators who teach grades as young as kindergarten.
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A “DEI in Art” panel decrying the removal of a photography display of nude children, describing that censorship as a “dangerous place” that the presenter would teach in the context of the censorship employed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.
- (The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth describes that art display: “In showing her children naked, moody, and in suggestive situations, Mann evokes an edgy, dark side of childhood that can be raw and unsettling.” Emphasis added).
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A librarian telling her “victory story” of bringing a sexually explicit book back to her library to provide to middle school students. The illustrated book about a fictional gay male high school couple includes multiple passages of explicit softcore pornography.
Unlike previous years, MFPE failed to publicly put their conference agenda and sessions online. Hedalen is currently investigating MFPE and other professional development providers to ensure they are following existing state and federal laws ahead of the next Legislature acting on her and Regier’s proposed legislation.
Speaker of the House Brandon Ler, R-Savage, and Representative Jodee Etchart, R-Billings, threw their support behind the proposed bill.
“Courses that teach our teachers must further our public education system’s obligation to provide students with a quality education and prepare the next generation for the workforce and real life. Montana students and their parents deserve no less. House Republicans are eager to work with the Senate and Superintendent Hedalen to get this across the finish line next session,” Ler and Etchart said.
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Questions? Contact:
McKenna Gregg, Communications Director
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