LGBTQ+ students in conservative crosshairs

Parents rights supporters attend a rally in Simi Valley on Sept. 26. the night before the Republican presidential primary debate.

Credit: Courtesy of Rebecca Holz / California Policy Center

LGBTQ+ students are the latest target in a campaign to promote conservative policies in California schools under the banner of parental rights. Over the last two months, seven school boards have passed policies that require school district staff to inform parents if their children are transgender.

Chino Valley Unified in San Bernardino County, Murrieta Valley Unified and Temecula Valley Unified in Riverside County, Orange Unified in Orange County, Anderson Union High School District in Shasta County, and Rocklin Unified and Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District in Placer County all require that teachers and other school staff inform parents, generally within three days, if a student asks to use a different name or pronoun, or to take part in a program, or to use a facility associated with a gender other than the one they had at birth.

Other school districts will follow, predicted Jonathan Zachreson, a Roseville City Unified board member and conservative activist. Almost every school district in Placer County, near Sacramento, is expected to consider the policy, he said.

Proponents of the parental notification policies have said that parents have the right to know what is going on with their children at school and that minors do not have a right to privacy. Opponents say these policies could endanger already vulnerable students who should be able to decide when they want to come out to their parents.

The flurry of parental notification policies are dividing communities, pitting teachers against students and creating fear and anxiety for LGBTQ+ students. Teachers in those districts find themselves choosing between their jobs and their relationships with students. Some worry if they follow the district policy, and break state law, they could end up in court.

California’s parental notification board policies have their origin in Assembly Bill 1314, proposed by Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Riverside, which was denied a committee hearing at the state Capitol in April. Since then, Essayli has worked with parents rights groups and attorneys to write a model board policy they would like school boards to use in their districts. Each community can customize the model policy to their standards, Essayli said.

Zachreson, founder of Protect Kids California, is part of that effort. He ran for school board after creating the Reopen California Schools Facebook page for parents frustrated by school closures during the pandemic, and later by masks and vaccination mandates.

“We will take it district by district,” he said of the parental notification policy.

Culture wars result in frustration, hostility

The parental notification policies have divided communities, leaving anger in their wake. On Sept. 6, hundreds of people overflowed the school board chamber at Rocklin Unified in Placer County. Speakers in support and opposition to notifying parents that their children are transgender gave heated and emotional testimony, both sides accusing the other of busing in supporters from outside the community.

“Look at the division in this room and outside this building tonight,” said Travis Mougeotte, a high school teacher and president of the Rocklin Unified teachers union. “It’s hard to be excellent when we’re focused on things that have nothing to do with the classroom, that have nothing to do with education, have nothing to do with making our classrooms and schools safer and better, inclusive environments for our students.”

One speaker in opposition to the board policy called it a solution in search of a problem, while others accused the board members of proposing it only to advance their political agenda.

Board member Tiffany Saathoff disagreed. “I have had parents, I have had teachers, I have had staff members request this policy,” she said.

LGBTQ+ students anxious about being outed

These cultural conflicts come on top of a backdrop of anxiety and stress as students settle back into their classrooms after the Covid-19 pandemic, said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education at UC Berkeley.

“I personally have a friend who would not be safe in his home if he came out to his parents as trans,” Asher Palmer, a Rocklin High School student who identifies as LGBTQ, said at the Sept. 6 meeting. “He would not be safe. His siblings would not be kind to him, and his parents would not be kind to him. … I hope you take my words into consideration and understand how unsafe children could become in their own households if this action is approved.”

Many speakers highlighted the high rate of suicides among LGBTQ+ students. A national survey by the LGBTQ mental health nonprofit Trevor Project in 2022 found that 41% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered killing themselves in the past year. Transgender, nonbinary and people of color reported even higher rates. Less than 40% of LGBTQ youth felt emotionally supported by their families. About half of the 28,000 students surveyed said they felt their schools were gender-affirming, and those who did reported lower rates of attempting suicide.

Rocklin resident Kurt Weidman spoke in support of the policy. “We believe we are protecting the children from those who destroy their innocence and exploit them for their own purposes,” he said. “On the whole, parents are the best protectors of children and have the natural right and duty for the care, custody and control of their children. Children in the main are naturally incapable of exercising self-governance until they reach the age of majority.”

The day after the Rocklin Unified vote, many students and teachers wore rainbow ribbons to show support for transgender students. Teacher Mougeotte said that despite the outpouring of support, students in marginalized groups, such as transgender students, were quieter than usual that first day.

A positive outcome of the debate was that students who may not have discussed gay rights before were having conversations about how the policy, how it affects their classmates and how it could affect other communities of students in the future, Mougeotte said.

California Democratic leaders fight back

Attorney General Rob Bonta says parental notification policies break state law and violate students’ civil rights and their right to privacy. He filed a lawsuit against Chino Valley Unified in San Bernardino County on Aug. 28. Bonta was granted a preliminary injunction to halt the parental notification policy to protect the safety of transgender and gender-nonconforming students while the court case proceeds.

“The battle line has been drawn here,” Essayli told EdSource. “Somehow the government has decided they are the arbiters of information, and they decide what information parents can be trusted with and which they can’t.”

Essayli said he would like to see the case get to the Supreme Court.

“The court will reaffirm our rights and that kids are the domain of their parents and that the government cannot decide what information they can and cannot get,” he said.

In another decision two weeks after the stay in the Chino Valley case, federal Judge Roger Benitez granted a preliminary injunction that prevents the Escondido Union School District from enforcing state guidance prohibiting school staff from informing parents if their children are transgender. It also forbids the district or state from disciplining the two teachers who are suing Escondido Union for requiring them to keep transgender students’ identities secret.

Last week, Attorney General Bonta sent guidance to all California school superintendents and school board members reminding them of the Chino Valley Unified restraining order and that the state Department of Justice’s intent to enforce the law remains unchanged. A hearing in the Chino Valley Unified case is set for Oct. 13.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in the state Legislature are pushing back against conservative board policies. Last week, the governor signed legislation that provides all-gender restrooms on school campuses and prohibits book banning and censorship of instructional materials. He also signed a bill requiring schools to train secondary school staff to support LGBTQ+ students and another that would establish a state advisory task force to identify and address the needs of LGBTQ+ students.

Teachers widely disapprove of notification policies

Teachers and union leaders have come out as major opponents of parental notification policies, saying they would drive a wedge between educators and students and endanger already vulnerable students. Some teachers in Rocklin Unified, including Mougeotte, say they simply aren’t going to do it.

“Why are we creating an environment that’s unwelcoming to students?” Mougeotte asked the Rocklin board on Sept. 6. “No matter what happens here tonight, kids that walk into my classroom tomorrow will no longer feel as safe and protected as they did today, no matter what. That’s on you. That’s not on me.”

Teachers at districts with these policies worry they could lose their jobs if they don’t comply. They are also concerned they could end up in court or have their credentials suspended if they disobey federal and state laws, and policies.

Commission on Teacher Credentialing officials could not give a definitive answer about whether a teacher would risk suspension or loss of their credentials if they followed board policies that are at odds with state law. Each report of misconduct is assessed to determine whether it should be reviewed by the credentials committee, said Anita Fitzhugh, spokesperson for the commission. The committee would determine whether to recommend an action to the commission, she said.

Parental rights galvanizing Republican Party

Across the country, conservatives — initially energized by unpopular pandemic school closures and safety restrictions — are using LGBTQ+ issues and critical race theory to rally supporters. In California, the Republican Party — which has struggled to win state seats for 30 years — has also turned its attention to local races, recruiting, training and endorsing candidates for school boards.

Parental rights is the overarching issue for the Republican Party, but right now it is focused on the parental notification issue, Essayli said.

“This is an issue we want to run on in 2024,” he said. “Parental rights transcend culture, language and faith. We had every faith group at the board meeting last night. It’s an 80/20 issue. I welcome this fight. I want the voters to know going into next year.”

Parent rights proponents say school districts should make decisions for their students and not the state. They say parents are being ignored locally, but at the same time, they are taking direction from well-funded lobbies in Florida, Fuller said.

“That cuts into their credibility,” he said.

Parental notification could be on the ballot next year

Protect Kids California has submitted a statewide proposition to the Attorney General’s Office that would require all state school districts to report transgender students to their parents, no matter what the community in that district or its school board wants. If they manage to collect 550,000 signatures it will go on the ballot in November 2024.

“Generally, we will default to local school boards, but the issue is that the data we are seeing is harming kids,” said Zachreson, a co-founder of the organization.

The organization also will ask the public to sign petitions for proposed ballot measures that would prohibit people who were born male from competing in women’s sporting events and another that would prohibit health care providers from prescribing hormones that stop or delay puberty or alter a minor’s appearance for the purpose of changing genders.

Fuller thinks the initiatives will gain traction.

“Especially when you have big Republican donors,” he said. “If you buy enough people in front of grocery stores pushing petitions, it’s likely they will get this on the ballot. It will have some appeal on the surface level.”

What will conservative school boards target next?

Teachers are worried about what conservative-majority school boards will turn to next.

“We are really concerned about book bans,” said Mike Patterson, a California Teachers Association board member and South Lake Tahoe High School teacher. “As teachers, we have some academic freedom. We need to stay within the state frameworks, but we still have some academic freedom when we teach. I’m sure they are going to go after academic freedom and want us to go back to scripted learning, which we did a decade ago and was an abject failure. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that is in our future.”

Essayli is eying a California law that allows children as young as 12 years old to obtain medical treatment without parental consent in certain circumstances, such as obtaining birth control, treatment of communicable diseases, mental health treatment and treatment for drug or alcohol-related problems.

But he’s focusing on the parental notification issue for now. “ The school board issue right now is sort of the flashpoint,” he said. “ It’s an issue that is easy to understand and articulate.”