New Bill of Rights Will Mean more Power to Parents, more Burdens on Schools
School leaders talked Monday about how the state's newly approved Parents' Bill of Rights will impact policy. It enhances many rights that already exist and creates new duties for educators.
BREVARD — If the state’s new Parents’ Bill of Rights was meant to crank up the political heat, as several speakers suggested at Monday night’s Transylvania County School Board meeting, it seemed to have done the trick.
An opponent of the new law called it a “war on teachers,” while a supporter warned, in an apparent reference to educators, “there are people right in our community intent on sexualizing our students.”
But what will it really mean for the school district’s policy?
Little change, or at least direct change, to hot-button issues that drove the passage of the Bill, including accusations from the conservative Moms for Liberty group that public schools teach pornography or anti-American versions of history.
The suggested revisions to policy required by the law, for example, include a single passage that addresses sex education and no mention of Critical Race Theory, which in any case is not included in the state’s American History curriculum.
Instead, documents provided for the public’s and the Board’s discussion show current policy already grants extensive parental oversight of instruction. Amendments needed to comply with the Bill do expand these rights, but mostly by adding requirements for more reports, more meetings, more chances for time-consuming and potentially costly hearings about parents’ complaints.
“The bill is going to put a very large burden on the administrative staff of the school system,” said Bryan O’Neill, the recently appointed Democratic Board member.”
One policy in particular, added Vice Chairman Kimsey Jackson, will create “a tremendous amount of additional work on the part of principals and other people in the school system.”
Jackson, a Republican who generally supports the law’s intent and mused at length about the dangers of pornography, also said many of the law’s requirements are “already in place. Parents have a number of rights now. They can certainly go to the school, sit down in the classroom and listen to what’s being taught. They can look at the instructional material. They can look at the books. They can engage the teacher in conversation.”
Monday’s public hearing and Board discussion were early steps in the required process of incorporating the Bill’s provisions into local school boards’ policies by the end of the year, and the revisions were recommended by the Board’s lawyers and the North Carolina School Boards Association.
At future meetings Board members will be able to suggest additional provisions, and both O’Neill and Republican Chris Wiener, the Board’s most vocal advocate of parental rights, said they plan to do so.
What do the current recommended changes look like and how will they change schools?
The main amendment addressing fears about sexualizing children is a prohibition on instruction covering “gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality . . . in kindergarten through fourth grade.”
But that doesn’t happen now, at least according to district policy.
What the document calls “reproductive and safety education” begins in 7th grade. Most such topics aren’t taught until the 9th grade, school officials said last year, and, as required by an earlier state law, emphasize the importance of abstinence. Current policy already requires schools to make reproductive health material used in these classes available to parents and requires parental permission for children to participate.
As for parental engagement, current district policy welcomes visitors as a way “to encourage” involvement of parents and the community, and directs principals “or their designees” to write a plan covering such engagement.
The new law says that the principal alone is responsible for writing the plan and must publish a draft and solicit input from parents before finalizing it.
Principals and teachers are already required to write school improvement plans with input from parents and community members. One of the longest sections of the recommended new policy says the superintendent must also create a ten-point “guide for student achievement” that will be discussed “at the beginning of each school year in meetings of students, parents and teachers.”
When it comes to health care, schools must now receive permission from parents before giving students prescribed medication, according to policy, and “obtain parental consent for medical services as required by law.”
The recommended revisions include a long section on health care that grants parents such powers as the right to view their children’s medical records. And if mental or physical health issues arise in the classroom, an amendment says, “school personnel shall encourage the student to discuss the issues with his or her parent.”
Any concerns raised about a student’s treatment requires principals to meet with parents within five days, conduct any necessary investigations, and if they can’t resolve the situation, notify the superintendent within seven days.
Current policy also allows inspection and objection to books and other teaching materials, though the district’s recent history suggests that, locally, fears of both children’s exposure to controversial material and excessive parental activism might be overblown.
In Florida districts, for example, as many as 300 books have been removed from schools after parental complaints. It happened once last year in Transylvania, Assistant Superintendent Brian Weaver wrote in an emailed response to NewsBeat, and “zero” times this year.
The biggest change addresses what happens if parents remain dissatisfied with responses to objections. The new law creates an extensive appeal process, granting parents the right to take complaints to court or the state Board of Education and leaving local districts liable for many of the costs.
“It imposes the potential for enormous costs for legal advice that has to be incurred,” O’Neill said. “The burden for that is going to be put back on the school system. I’m afraid that there is going to be a lot of frivolous activity that is going to happen and it’s going to take money away from our students, from our teachers, from our personnel.”
He also forecast changes to local policy he hopes to add. If one parent complains about a book or other instructional material, he said, other parents should also be notified and allowed “to give their opinion, so we have a balanced evaluation of materials.”
Wiener did not respond to a question from NewsBeat about additional changes he plans to suggest. At the meeting, he praised speakers — most of whom opposed the Bill — for providing comments.
He also praised the intent of the law, which is to allow a clearer distinction between the roles of public educators, on the one hand, and parents, who bear the responsibility for “instilling values, morals and cultural heritage for their children,” he said.
“It is essential to dispel the myth that schools have a greater interest in students than parents do.”
But none of the teachers and former teachers who spoke Monday made such a claim. Educators just want to be able to teach without the threat of being embroiled in controversy, said Betsy Burrows, a former teacher and current director of teacher education at Brevard College.
Since the Bill’s passage, she said, she has heard from four former students, current teachers who are concerned they could violate policy by asking students about their well-being or interests. And three students have told her the coming changes have helped convince them not to pursue teacher training.
“To the extent that these rules cause fear and stress, they risk us losing many of our best teachers to private schools or different professions that pay better and are not weaponized by politicians,” she concluded. “It makes me sad.”
Editor’s note: Taking a working break. Next week, I plan to ride the bike trails that connect Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., and to document their impact on nearby communities. I might be late returning calls and emails. Thanks for your patience.
Email: brevardnewsbeat@gmail.com
Enjoy your trek and thank you for the update on state laws that already overburden educators
Much ado about nothing. Yet another example of stoking fear over things that don't exist. Our educators are overburdened as it is, and yet these so called "small government" advocates are heaping more onto their full plates. There are so many more real issues to focus on.