Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the SAFETY Act, which prohibits school districts from requiring teachers to inform parents if their child wishes to use a different name or pronouns than those assigned at birth. It is designed to prevent what advocates call the “forced outing” of transgender students by educators.
But last night, the Cajon Valley Union School District board passed a resolution requiring district staff to notify parents or guardians of students under 12 if their child requests a new designation. This was part of a broader resolution on parents’ rights.
It also requires teachers to inform parents if a student wishes to use a name other than the generally accepted diminutive form of the child’s legal name or wishes to use gender-segregated facilities, such as toilets, that do not correspond to the sex assigned at birth. It also prohibits staff from referring students for medical treatment related to gender reassignment.
However, the resolution contains an exception: It prohibits notifications “if there is a reasonable suspicion that doing so would place a student at risk of abuse, neglect, or other significant harm.”
The resolution’s passage could set the stage for further legal wrangling over school districts’ policies on LGBTQ+ issues.
When Governor Newsom signed the law, it sparked a storm of criticism, particularly among conservatives. Much of that criticism focused on a misrepresentation of what the law does, as our Deborah Sullivan Brennan recently reported. The law does not prevent educators from informing parents or guardians that a student wishes to use a different name or pronoun than the one assigned at birth. Instead, it prevents districts from requiring schools to notify parents of such changes, as is the case with Cajon Valley’s new policy.
Public comments at the meeting were heated both against and for the resolution.
“We are here because we believe this is a coordinated action by some activist parents and activist teachers who want to introduce a harmful radical gender ideology (into schools) behind our backs… They are doing this by introducing ‘woke’ terminology into the curriculum and we do not appreciate that,” a spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson opposing the policy said it was another attempt to target “children who happen to be LGBTQ” and divide their community for political reasons.
This resolution “seeks to force our schools and teachers to interfere in what could actually be a private discussion between parents and children, the family itself. The government has no place in this discussion. Local laws should not impose rigid policies that intrude on the unique private and personal lives of our children. Teachers are there to teach, mentor and be trusted supporters of the students entrusted to their care,” the spokesperson said.
The Cajon Valley Board of Directors ultimately voted unanimously to adopt the resolution.
In a statement before the vote, Rep. Chris Ward, who sponsored the SAFETY Act, wrote that the bill merely “clarifies existing law that school boards cannot require students to be forcibly expelled from school and that laws that allow this are invalid.”
The law will also protect teachers who choose not to enforce policies like the one adopted by the Cajon Valley board, Ward added.
“It is unfortunate that the dogmatic beliefs of a few individuals continue to spread misinformation, distract, and waste taxpayer dollars on political agenda items that single out LGBTQ+ students instead of focusing on improving the overall education of all students,” Ward wrote.
Aaron Marcus, an eighth-grade science teacher at Greenfield Middle School, has long been frustrated with what he sees as a Cajon Valley school board that is “focused on some political agenda instead of just letting us make sure the kids are protected and educated.”
Cajon Valley has seen numerous disputes surrounding LGBTQ+ issues in recent years. Last year, staff were ordered to remove posters that called their classrooms a “safe space” for LGBTQ+ issues, and just last month, investigators with the California Department of Education found that the district had illegally removed mentions of LGBTQ+ people from its curriculum.
“I don’t think this is about the children. I think this is about the adults fighting their culture wars and using the children as pawns,” Marcus said.
He’s also frustrated by the distraction this policy could pose. His class often has a half-dozen kids who want a nickname, and if a student asks to be called “Pat,” “we just call him Pat and go back to science class,” he said. Marcus believes this new policy will only anger the state and almost certainly lead to legal action against Cajon Valley.
“And the district will end up spending a lot of money on (lawsuits) instead of teaching the kids to read,” Marcus said. “It’s a distraction and it’s political.”
In fact, in Southern California alone, numerous legal disputes have arisen over parental notification policies. In one case, two teachers in the Escondido Union School District challenged a district policy that required them to use students’ preferred pronouns in class and their legal names when speaking to parents. In two other cases, state authorities reprimanded or sued districts that required parents to be notified when their students transferred schools.
Cajon Valley appears to be well aware of the potential litigation. The agenda for last night’s closed meeting included a discussion with legal counsel about anticipated litigation.
Board Chairman Jim Miller said during the meeting that the district had reviewed existing laws and “contrary to the statements made tonight about existing state laws, we are in fact following existing state laws.”
“With all due respect, I don’t see this as an outing concept. I just don’t. I see this as parents’ involvement in the upbringing of children, especially young children who are not yet fully developed themselves and do not have the mental capacity to make certain decisions,” Miller said.
Regarding the SAFETY Act, which doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1, Miller said there are “glaring opportunities for interpretation” that allow district staff to conduct voluntary conversations with parents. He did not explain how the district’s policy does not violate the SAFETY Act, which prevents teachers from sharing the kind of information about students without student consent outlined in the Cajon Valley resolution. But he pointed to litigation challenging the new law.
While the policy requires school administrators to inform parents, it does not require teachers, but that inevitably means that teachers who know their students best will be tasked with relaying sensitive information to their superiors, says eighth-grade teacher Aaron Marcus.
Regardless of what the district faces, Marcus said its goals will remain the same: to instill a sense of trust in students and provide them with a good education. He disagrees with much of what is in the resolution, but he believes teachers should not be put in this position.
“Ideally, parents know their children well enough to have this information or to be involved in it,” he said. “But if (children) really don’t want to tell their parents, those are the very children we should be protecting.”
