Renmark High School's principal, Mat Evans, issued a letter of apology to parents who heard that their children left in disgust during the session on March 22 given by a third-party presenter and put on by Headspace Berri.
The apology read that the school was “taking this matter very seriously” and had “raised concerns” with the speaker from Headspace located in Berri who has been suspended from operating in government schools while the Education Department investigates, per The Advertiser.
Evans also stated the school had launched an internal review due to the normal procedure of "notifying parents of specific presentations was not followed."
“I apologise unreservedly for that,” he said in the letter sent on March 25.
“I acknowledge that some of the students felt uncomfortable with this content, and there have been a number of complaints from parents," he said.
“I’d like to thank those parents for raising these concerns with me directly and apologise to those families.”
He said that the internal review would “ensure that processes around such notifications, and procedures with regard to third parties attending at our school are always met in future."
Horrified parents learned that their daughters in year 9 at the school had been pulled from their regular lessons and placed in a separate classroom with the Headspace Berri facilitators and the speaker without the supervision of a teacher. They had not been notified of the presentation or had consented to it.
"We had a teacher that told us to grab a chair and sit in front of the board, and then the Headspace people came in and then [the teacher] left, so then we're sitting in front of a board alone with no teachers, just the Headspace people," 14-year-old student Courtney White said, according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The title slide of the presentation read "You can see queerly now. Now point in hiding."
14-year-old Emelia Wunderberg said all the girls felt extremely "uncomfortable" as the presenter went into graphic detail about their sexuality and then showed a slide about what each component in "LGBTQIA+" meant.
"There was a slide for what the 'plus' means, and they just started randomly saying words that no-one knew, like bestiality," Emelia said. "They said [the queer community] just accepts all of it, even though … isn't it illegal?"
"We're all just sitting there like, 'What the hell? What are we doing here? Why are we learning about animals having sex with humans?'" she said.
"It was really disgusting, it was really uncomfortable."
Following the incident, a government spokeswoman said the students had been offered extra counselling.
Headspace Berri's website states that it "provides free mental health services, alcohol & drug counselling, vocational support & some physical & sexual health services for young people 12-25 years old in the Riverland region of South Australia."
