By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice
When Colorado mom Cindy Stein sat before state lawmakers last spring, she was still recovering from cancer—and from losing her child to a teacher’s influence in a system that no longer sees parents as essential.
“While I was fighting for my life, this teacher inserted herself into my daughter’s world, convincing her to reject me and her family,” Stein told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The clip spread quickly online. A month earlier, the Daily Wire broke the story, exposing what she says Durango schools tried to keep quiet.
When a teacher’s comfort crossed a line
Stein says her 16-year-old met Durango High School math teacher Joanne Smotherman while she was enduring chemotherapy.
“I was battling cancer the summer between sophomore and junior year,” she said. “Going into junior year my kiddo was even more vulnerable because mom was sick. We didn’t know if the treatment would work—it was hard to watch.”
At first, she was grateful for a caring teacher. “Joanne stepped in and gave a safe place,” Stein said. “For that, I’m thankful—an ear to listen, a warm place to come and just be away from the stress.
Stein said her daughter had been diagnosed with ADHD and autism—struggled with social cues, which made it hard to make or keep friends. Smotherman, she believes, seized on insecurities to tell her child that it was because she’d been “born in the wrong body.”
The changes she didn’t see coming
By junior year, Stein began noticing small but startling shifts—her daughter stopped eating, shaved her head and dressed differently. She showed love by accepting the changes and helping her child shop for clothes.
“I permitted all of those little things because I thought I was providing a safe environment for my child to discover who they were,” she said. “I bought the men’s clothes, the deodorant and body wash. I thought if I supported her through the stage, she’d feel seen and it would pass.”
She described her daughter’s transformation. “We had the shaved head, the men’s clothes, shirts, pants, shoes, even boxer shorts,” she said.
The night everything broke open
One November morning in 2024, Stein’s daughter was gone. She’d been told she’d stay for a while with her grandmother in Denver. When Stein saw the window screen kicked out, she called police to report her missing.
The next day she went to her daughter’s workplace. “My kiddo was escorted out the back door by the security guard,” she said.
Stein called Durango police as she followed her child through town, describing the situation to dispatch. “My kiddo ran to an open restaurant, ran to the bathroom and locked the door. About thirty minutes later, Joanne Smotherman shows up and introduces herself, and that’s when I found out she’d had my kid for twenty-four hours.”
“A teacher, somebody in a position of trust and authority, had my child and never had the common decency to call and tell me, ‘Hey, I’ve got your kid. Your kid is safe.’”
Police refused to let Stein speak with her child but allowed Smotherman to. The teen was soon hospitalized for suicidal threats and later transferred to a mental-health facility in Montrose.
“I’m hearing from Durango police that Joanne Smotherman was on the phone with her attorney trying to block me from taking my child home,” Stein said. “Even while my kid was at the mental facility, Joanne had access—and still had an attorney trying to stop me.”
Play along or lose custody
Stein says she tried to report Smotherman to the Durango Adult Education Center, where the teacher was employed.
“I wrote a letter to the Adult Education Center, told them what happened and how inappropriate it was for their teacher to be involving herself in my family’s life—and they called CPS on me,” she said. “The next day I got that call.”
The investigation became a turning point. “We had to meet with their people, and if we hadn’t answered the questions correctly—especially if we didn’t affirm and play the game—my daughter would not have come home. We had to pretend and go along with the delusion.”
That meeting marked the moment she realized she no longer had a voice in her child’s life. “The moment my kid told me, ‘I think I might be a boy,’ my parental rights went out the window,” she said. “That was before HB-1312 even passed.”
RMV found that Durango 9-R followed followed Colorado Association of School Boards guidance that kept parents out of gender/pronoun notifications.
The system that turned its back
Weeks later, Stein again tried to bring her child home, but deputies from the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office refused to intervene, calling it a civil matter.
“Every system, every organization that was supposed to help failed my family,” she told Rich Guggenheim.
She believes her daughter has been fully isolated. “She’s so thoroughly brainwashed by that teacher that the few texts I’ve had from her have been absolutely vile—‘I’m not your child anymore, you’re a sick son of a [expletive], don’t ever contact me again.’”
“She sewed her own homecoming dress her sophomore year,” Stein said. “She went with a boy. As a child she loved princess dresses, makeup and hair. She was girly-girl through and through.”
Durango’s pattern of secrecy and ideology
Stein’s story unfolded inside a district RMV has investigated for more than a year—marked by secrecy, consultant influence and legal maneuvering over transparency.
RMV found DEI contractors and attorneys rewriting policy to avoid discrimination claims, delayed and incomplete public-records responses—and a board more focused on symbolic politics than academics.
“Other parents need to know this does happen,” Stein said. “This isn’t a made-up story. As soon as my kiddo said the word ‘trans,’ my rights went out the window.”
What Stein wants parents to know
Her message to parents is simple—a warning born of experience.
“If a parent suspects their child is being groomed, they’ve got to find where the leak is and turn it off,” she said. “That means taking the phone, taking the computer, getting your kid away from constant affirmation.”
She gave the same warning on Free State Colorado with host Brandon Wark: “Turn the faucet off. If that means you pull your kid out of school, do it. If you need to move out of state, do it.”
Asked how she’s endured the past two years, she said, “Without sounding cliché—really leaning into my faith, trusting God, letting myself be refined through this fire.” She added, “I’m hoping to see justice this side of heaven—if I don’t, I know it will be on the other.”
Stein also credits the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network—and its director, Lori Gimelshteyn—for guiding her through the process and giving her hope when few others would help.
A warning from Durango
For Stein, speaking out is no longer about one child. It’s about the system that let it happen.
In the mountain town better known for the Durango-Silverton whistle, her story rings as a warning for every parent who still believes they should have a say in their child’s life.
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