A Cheektowaga father is demanding answers about his child’s homework. He says his 7-year-old was given a coloring book about HIV and AIDS.

“My son’s asking questions about it and saying well what is it? What can it do?” said John Tatta.
Those are questions John Tatta says he wasn’t prepared for when he picked his 7-year-old son up from Union East Elementary School Tuesday.

He says his son received a HIV/AIDS coloring book during what was supposed to be gym class.
“He said they had picture day, so their gym class was in the classroom, is basically a health class,” said Tatta.
 

Tatta says even if it were a health class, he says he didn’t approve and believes his son shouldn’t be learning about a serious virus so young.

Especially since Tatta says he didn’t learn about it until he was in middle school.
“I would not agree that a second grader would be able to comprehend what this virus is,” said Tatta.
He says even his 13-year-old old nephew hasn’t learned about HIV in school yet.

“I mean you’re kind of in my opinion, taking the innocence of  7-year-old and making them fear for something that they shouldn’t have to fear for,” said Tatta.

For Tatta, the coloring book is one thing, he says he’s also upset there was no warning to parents beforehand or that children would come home with that information. He says he’s seen other parents complaining about the same assignment on Facebook.

“It’s not good information when the parents aren’t prepared or have even prepared themselves or their household to say how are we going to approach this? How do we want to discuss, what do we want to tell them?” said Tatta.

Now Tatta says as a parent, he’s worried that his son will have even more questions — answers that Tatta isn’t ready for his son to learn.

So Tatta says he has some questions of his own.

“Does the school board even know this was being taught, did they know this was being handed out?” said Tatta.

News 4 reached out to the Cheektowaga Central School District several times Tuesday and asked if they’re aware of this incident, but didn’t hear back.  
 

Tatta says that coloring book assignment is supposed to be returned by Thursday, but he says that won’t happen. Instead he plans to go to talk to the school principal Wednesday.