Angry calls follow school cross-dress day

REEDSBURG, Wis., April 9 (UPI) -- A Reedsburg, Wis., elementary school received a flood of complaints after a Christian radio group condemned it for hosting an opposite gender dress-up day.

Pineview Elementary was sharply criticized by the Milwaukee-based Voice of Christian Youth America radio network after it gave students the option of showing up for school dressed as an elderly person or someone of the opposite gender as part of its annual Wacky Week, which included other themed-costume days, the Reedsburg Times-Press reported Wednesday.

The network sent out a special broadcast on nine Wisconsin radio stations Friday that accused the school of promoting alternative lifestyles with the cross-dressing event.

"We believe it's the wrong message to send to elementary students," said Jim Schneider, program director for VCY America, said. "Our station is one that promotes traditional family values. It concerns us when a school district strikes at the heart and core of the Biblical values. To promote this to elementary school students is a great error."

School and district administrators said they received a barrage of angry calls sparked by the broadcast.

"The promotion of transgenderism -- that was not our purpose," District Administrator Tom Benson said. "Our purpose was to have a Wacky Week mixing in a bit of silliness with our reading, writing and arithmetic."