Seven California school districts have now passed parental-notification policies that require schools to alert parents if children seek to deny or change their gender.
Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District joined the ranks of Chino Valley Unified School District, Orange Unified School District, Murietta Valley Unified School District, Temecula Valley Unified School District, Anderson Union High School District, and the Rocklin Unified School District last night, when its board voted unanimously to instate the parental-notification policy. It’s California’s first elementary-school district to do so.
Polls show that parents value their rights: 84 percent of California voters support local laws that require parents to be notified of changes in a child’s health, and 62 percent would be more likely to support such laws if they include notifying parents of gender change. It’s notable to see numbers like this in such a blue state, and a testament to the power of parents, despite school districts’ efforts to infringe on their right to care for their own children.
California’s is an uphill battle. The organization Parents Defending Education has documented that 1,044 school districts have in place transgender policies that “openly state that district personnel can or should keep a student’s transgender status hidden from parents.” More than 400 of those districts are in California. Parents, though, are uniting across political divides to reverse these ludicrous policies.