Coming to a school board near you: A battle over whether parents have the right to know if their child identifies as transgender at school.
The fighting has now spread to two coasts.
As a legal battle rages in New Jersey over parents’ rights to know whether their child identifies as transgender at school, a nearly identical scenario is playing out outside Los Angeles.
Many more seem certain to follow, as school boards and districts that want parents to be informed that a child identifies as transgender face state officials (usually Democrats) who want the opposite.
In the latest case, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, is suing to block the Chino Valley Unified School District’s policy of informing parents if their child socially transitions.
The policy, which was approved in July by a 4-1 vote, requires employees to notify parents if their children ask to use a different name or pronoun or seek to use bathrooms and programs that do not align with their birth gender while They are in school.
Sonia Singh (left) and Nicole Vicario have become involved in the fight for parental rights in Chino, California. John Chapple / Instagram Photo Copyright: @JohnChapple
California Attorney General Rob Banta is suing the Chino Valley Unified School District over its new policy requiring the school to inform parents if their child socially transitions to another gender.
At a news conference, Bonta called the policy a “forced exit,” adding that it requires the school to inform parents, “even if the student does not grant them permission to do so.
“And it goes against their expressed wishes, even if the school staff member believes they may be putting the student in danger,” he said, adding that it violated “the privacy rights of LGBTQ+ students.”
But parents who spoke to The Post said child welfare safeguards already exist and that the state is targeting Chino to scare away other California districts that have already adopted similar policies or are considering them.
The Chino School District, just east of Los Angeles County, includes three cities (Chino, Chino Hills, and parts of Ontario) and has more than 26,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
“I can’t imagine the idea of not wanting to tell parents what’s going on with their kids,” Nicole Vicario told The Post. “To put it in children’s heads that they don’t need to tell their parents things? It is causing a rift between students and parents. But we want strong relationships in families.”
Nicole Vicario speaking at the July board meeting when the policy was approved 4 to 1. YouTube
The meeting attracted strong opinions from both sides of the debate.KTVU
The mother of eight who grew up in Chino has three children still in the district and until recently worked there as a school secretary for 12 years.
She noted that school employees already have a reporting obligation, which means they have to report to state child protective services if children are in danger at home.
“If a child says ‘I don’t feel safe at home,’ we have to file a report. There are already protections in place for children who feel they are in danger at home,” Vicario said.
Sonia Singh, whose 10-year-old son attends school in the district, said she feels the state’s lawsuit goes against all the rules already in place.
Sonja Shaw went from soccer mom to president of the board of directors.
“My son hit his head with another kid on the basketball court at recess. I got a call immediately saying, ‘He says he’s fine and he’s ready to go back to class, but I have to let you know,’” Singh said. “But if my son says that he is a girl, I can’t tell. This makes no sense”.
The district is not an outlier in the country.
Since the 2020 Covid shutdowns, there has been a broad movement across the country advocating for more parental involvement in public education.
Parents fought to get schools to reopen, criticized mask and vaccine mandates and opposed critical race theory in curricula.
Such a surge helped Republican Glenn Youngkin win the Virginia gubernatorial race in 2021 and prompted changes in local and school board elections.
The fallout from COVID-19 prompted a group of Chinese mothers to question the direction of the district during the pandemic.
Sonia Singh, who has a 10-year-old son in the Chino school district, believes the state lawsuit will only galvanize more parents. Photo copyright John Chapple / Instagram: @JohnChapple
Sonja Shaw, a fitness trainer and mother of two teenagers, said she and other parents felt ignored by the previous school board as they asked questions and called for accountability.
He encouraged the political novice to run for the board.
She defeated the incumbent, attorney Christina Gagnier, and became board president in January.
Shaw said adopting the new policy was simple. “It was the first time in many years that our district did something that parents expressed support for.”
During the packed July meeting when the vote took place, Vacario called the atmosphere “tense” but stepped up to the microphone and said, “We will no longer allow the town to raise our children,” to applause.
Board President Sonja Shaw listens to public comments at a meeting in June. PA
Vicario said that as the school’s secretary, she had been on the front lines of some of the ways schools were blocking parents, including training sessions on dealing with transgender students.
“If they identified themselves by a different name, there was a space in the system that said ‘alias,’” he said.
He recalled speaking to the mother of one of those children and mistakenly calling the student by his school’s ‘alias’, but correcting himself when he realized he was reading the wrong chart.
“It felt misleading. She made me feel a little crazy too,” he said.
In his lawsuit, the attorney general said the board was motivated “to create and harbor animosity, discrimination and bias toward transgender and gender nonconforming students.”
Trans rights groups say LBGTQ youth are especially susceptible to suicide and should be protected from forced departures.
But the parents told The Post they think the opposite: that their participation keeps children safe.
Misty Startup, a nurse and mother of six, told The Post: “People say we have blood on our hands, but parental involvement decreases suicide.
Nicole Vicario was a school secretary for 12 years and is now involved in the fight for parents’ rights. Photo copyright John Chapple / Instagram: @JohnChapple
“Where are the studies for the opposite opinion? No one says: ‘We have kept a secret from the family and now they have not committed suicide because the parents were not informed.’
Last month, parental rights advocates won a major victory in California after the Spreckels Union School District in Monterey County paid $100,000 to a mother who filed a lawsuit alleging the school “socially transferred” her then 11 year old daughter to a child without her knowledge or consent.
The mother, Jessica Konen, said her daughter is now re-identifying as a girl and vowed to keep fighting, telling Fox News that schools “need to understand their place and they need to stay in place.”
Tony Thurmond, California State Superintendent of Schools, speaks at the controversial school board meeting before being fired for exceeding the allotted time.KTVU
Singh said Konen’s victory is not only a victory for the parents, but also a harbinger of things to come if family notification is not required.
“This case is showing everyone that this is what will continue to happen. [if parents aren’t informed],” she said. “The district didn’t elaborate because they knew they were going to have to pay a lot more money.”
Singh said she and other parents have been branded as crazy right-wing Christians and pawns of “Freedom Moms,” a conservative education advocacy group with chapters across the country.
The July board meeting where the new policy was approved was packed with many for and against. KTVU
But she said, “I am a Sikh. My family is from India. I’m just a parent who cares. If you have a child who suffers from gender dysphoria, for me that is mental and medical. If it is a doctor, it is necessary to inform the parents”.
Gagnier, the ousted president of the board, told Vice that the work of Moms for Liberty could be seen behind the new wave of parents who ousted her.
“In our community, a group of parents emerged that other board members had no idea who they were, were not parents that were immediately identified by our school administrators or others,” he told the outlet.
Shaw, who had the group’s backing, acknowledges having investigated their political resources, among other information, but denies any ties to them.
Chinese mothers Sonia Singh (left) and Nicole Vicario are speaking out in favor of parents notifying transgender students. John Chapple / Instagram Photo Copyright: @JohnChapple
“We received no money, no guidance, no playbook. As parents we just wanted to have a voice,” said Shaw, who primarily credits California Assemblyman Philip Chen, a Republican, and his chief of staff for providing “invaluable advice.”
Singh predicts that the legal fight with the attorney general is raising awareness among other, once-dormant parents, and will have political ramifications.
“It was a miscalculation on their part. They ruined it. There are not many parents who agree with this,” Singh said.
“Most parents just want their children to succeed academically and socially. We want to go back to basics.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn