Elena Chin, a former school counselor at a Department of Education elementary school in Queens for 23 years, founded the group after feeling increasingly alarmed by COVID closures, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and required diversity and equity workshops which she felt framed staff as “white supremacists.” 

“What we hope to accomplish is minimize it before it even starts and is full blown into the schools,” Chin said. “Raise awareness. Get a parent at every school board meeting to watchdog. We can’t normalize this stuff.”

Meeting by Zoom for about six months, the new Queens, New York chapter is following the same agenda as the organization, hoping to accomplish what some of the 285 other chapters already have: Limit or remove books and content featuring LGBTQ+ identities, racism and sex, which they believe can harm children. 

Some education experts were doubtful the New York City chapter will find much support in the overwhelmingly blue metropolis, but acknowledged people have always been in the city. Other parent groups with similarly conservative ideals have already gained a foothold locally.

Across the country, Moms for Liberty — making the Queens launch unsurprising to Michigan State researcher Rebecca Jacobsen, who’s been tracking the groups’ presence at school board meetings nationwide. 

“Their explicit mission says to represent voices that feel unheard. So in some ways, a really strong liberal location might lead to a small group of parents feeling like they don’t have a voice,” Jacobsen said. “Moms for Liberty has stepped in and said, ‘we’re here to represent you.’ And that’s a powerful feeling.” 

Chin was particularly concerned by the use of preferred pronouns, the number of children who told her they were gay, and the fact that she . 

“We’re telling children, you can tell me [you’re gay], and not your parents. That sounds like grooming to me,” Chin said. 

As a term, “grooming” has often been appropriated by conservatives to describe LGBTQ+ inclusion — a trend experts say minimizes real threats of child sexual abuse and vilifies queer people. 

Chin believes the number of children claiming they were gay and posters celebrating diversity was a “social contagion” at P.S. 64, for kids she said were just looking for more acceptance or to fit in with friends. 

Gender Queer was the only title Chin referenced in an interview with ����Ӱ��. The memoir, which won two American Library Association awards, the Alex for young readers and the Stonewall for nonfiction, has become a around the country for parents and politicians looking to ban school discussions about gender identity. 

In setting up the New York chapter, Chin has met roadblocks when attempting to open a bank account and finding a venue for in-person meetings. Two major banks declined her request. Only a third accepted, a smaller, local one which she declined to name. 

About 20 adults have “joined the movement” since April, Chin said. Outside of Queens, four members of the new Moms for Liberty chapter are from Brooklyn and one is from the Bronx. Every major racial group is represented. 

Yet not all are parents: Many are retirees, grandparents who “can have a voice without fear,” said Chin, who believes more parents with children in the city’s schools are staying away. 

“Many people are fearing for their jobs, fearing the association,” she said, “… and they fear retaliation against their kids.”

She is currently searching for a local location to screen an anti-trans documentary. The chapter plans to organize to oppose . While New York City goes beyond current state requirements to offer sex ed to its middle and high schoolers, the expansion would bring modified lessons to K-6 graders.

The group will also challenge curricula with an “anti-American message,” she said, that might make some children believe they are “victims” and others “oppressors.” 

Because the city’s schools are not governed by traditional school boards, where other chapters have exercised power to oust superintendents, the Queens chapter will advocate through media, political connections and gaining membership.

“That’s really my goal. To get people motivated everywhere,” Chin said. “I would love to see a chapter in every borough, minimally.” 

Moms for Liberty has been characterized , which Chin said is, “not a bad thing at all.” 

Even after the characterization, more members have joined nationally, Chin claimed. “So just twirl away,” she said. A spokesperson for Moms for Liberty’s national arm confirmed the group “saw a bump in membership and chapter openings,” after the SPLC’s hate group distinction in June 2023.

Maya Henson Carey, a research analyst with SPLC, said the organization’s rhetoric and work disproportionately hurts Black, brown and LGBTQ+ students, already some of the nation’s most vulnerable student populations. 

“By taking out books and parts of history that reflect who they are, they’re really seeking to erase their identities from public spaces and the classroom,” Henson Carey said. 

Though about 76% of New York City voted for President Joe Biden in the last election, have always thrived, particularly in parts of Queens, Staten Island and southern Brooklyn. It’s those pockets where Chin has already found support.

But some experts doubt the group’s conservative agenda will find much of a home in the city at large.

“When they get into the issue of book banning and attitudes towards gay and trans people, it’ll resonate with some folks, but I think the outcry against them will be very strong,” said Joseph Viteritti, public policy and education scholar at Hunter College. 

“If they’re going to lead with that kind of stuff, they’re going to realize very soon that we’re not Florida here,” added Viteritti, who served as a senior advisor to schools chiefs in New York City, Boston and San Francisco.

Yet already this year, parents of all races preferring more conservative education policies have made waves in the city, including in lower , a historically liberal block of neighborhoods. 

Via , conservative have found more power — 40% of candidates endorsed by Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education were elected this cycle. Only 2% of public school parents voted in the election, according to . 

PLACE, while not affiliated with the Queens Moms for Liberty chapter, shares some similar values. Particularly in wanting to preserve and expand merit-based admissions policies to the city’s most coveted schools — a practice research suggests reinforces racial imbalances. 

“I know that the things [Moms for Liberty] are talking about are things that I hear parents here in New York talking about all the time,” said Maud Maron, co-president of PLACE and community education council member in lower Manhattan’s District 2. 

In a dramatic reversal, the district, where seven of 10 community council members were PLACE-endorsed, has just announced it . 

Parents often say, ‘I’m 100% there, I just can’t tweet under my own name,’ or ‘I just can’t say it, because of work ramifications,’ Maron said.

For scholars who track Moms for Liberty’s work, despite hesitance or fear parents may feel in aligning with the organization, it’s clear small networks of parents are effective and organized at making their voices heard, sharing strategies via social media from coast to coast. 

As a result, New Yorkers may soon see the same language and challenges levied in Florida once the Queens chapter begins to act on its agenda.

“We would have thought, wow, those are really different,” Jacobsen said, referencing the Queens launch and other regions that would have seemed unlikely. 

“… That’s really what’s different today,” she said, “the ability to very quickly move the same message to really disparate places.”

The New York City Department of Education has not yet released data on the total number of young people enrolled in its schools, nor has it confirmed exactly how many students have shown up each day — figures that officials say the DOE has on hand but is choosing not to make public.��

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“They are refusing to disclose critical information,” New York City Councilman Mark Treyger, who has repeatedly pressed the district to release the counts, told ����Ӱ��. “The situation right now is concerning because we don’t have a full picture of enrollment and attendance per school.” 

Those figures will be released, the DOE said, after registers close for the district’s Oct. 31 reporting deadline to the state.��

Meanwhile, officials fear that as many 150,000 students may have in city classrooms this year.��

There’s “no question” the school district has more detailed attendance and enrollment data than it’s releasing, said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children of New York. Using numbers obtained from the DOE, her nonprofit recently found that attendance among students without permanent housing was just through the first weeks of school. Attendance for that highly vulnerable population has since ticked up to , the DOE said on Oct. 18 — further indication there are more detailed data that the city is keeping under wraps.

On Sept. 28, Los Angeles Unified School District made headlines after revealing a compared to its enrollment the previous year — the steepest decline seen by the city in years. The same week, a news analysis of showed the district had lost 10,000 students, meaning it may no longer be the nation’s third-largest. Other top school systems, like Houston Independent School District, have yet to publicize their counts.

In late September, the New York Post that roughly 200 schools in New York City were missing at least a quarter of their student bodies, and 51 had absentee rates above 40 percent. In hopes of tracking down missing kids, the Department of Education pressed principals to reach out via .��

A spokesperson for the school system explained that those numbers may be misleading because the counts include so-called “transfer schools,” which historically have had lower attendance rates because they serve students as old as 19 who often work jobs.��

But the district failed to provide a more accurate tabulation of the share of schools struggling with high absenteeism when asked by ����Ӱ��.

Last year, New York City schools saw a in their overall student body — from slightly over 1 million students to 955,490 — with indications that the problem may only worsen in 2021-22: In April, kindergarten applications were down , with 8,000 fewer applicants than the year prior.

The district this year is requiring in-person learning for most students after last year when a majority of families opted for online instruction. With for the spread of COVID-19 in schools, especially those whose children are still too young to receive coronavirus immunizations, it remains unclear how many have chosen to keep their children home for safety concerns.

The city publishes a day-by-day attendance rate, which on Oct. 19 was reported to be . But Mayor Bill de Blasio has the numerator and denominator behind the percentage — the district’s total enrollment divided by the number of students in attendance that day. Those counts are normally released later in the school year, the district maintains.

But this year is different, emphasized Treyger, who chairs the Education Committee and  formerly worked as a New York City public school teacher. Anecdotally, the council member said he has heard accounts from principals in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx of attendance rates that have reached what he called “emergency status” — as low as 40 or 50 percent. In light of the dire concerns, he believes the school district ought to release the attendance ledgers.

“Nothing prohibits the city from sharing those enrollment numbers with the public,” he said.

But with the school system dragging its heels, the council member has filed legislation requiring it to publicize those data, as well as school-by-school attendance counts. If passed, the bills could go into force as early as late November, Treyger said.��

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office did not respond to questions from ����Ӱ�� about whether he  would sign those pieces of legislation should they reach his desk. The mayor leaves office at the end of the year.

Separately, ����Ӱ�� filed a public records request in May for the number of students chronically absent — those missing 10 percent or more days — in the 2020-21 school year. The DOE, which was forced to reform its public records procedures in 2018 after being sued for non-compliance with the law, delayed its response to the request from June to October and then from October to January.

Levine, of Advocates for Children, feels similarly to Treyger, that quality data are necessary to help diagnose the most pressing problems facing students in the nation’s largest school system.

“If the bus isn’t coming, there’s a very different solution than if a parent is concerned about safety during COVID-19,” she said. “Public data helps to shine a light on disparities within the education system and allow stakeholders to help identify and push for solutions.”