California school district in approves gender notification policy
By Daniel Macht
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ROSEVILLE, California (KCRA) — A Roseville school district on Thursday became the latest in California to adopt a policy to notify parents if their child requests to be identified as a gender other than their biological sex.
The Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District Board of Trustees passed the policy unanimously following about two hours of public comment.
“Dry Creek is committed to working with parents and guardians, community, and educational partners in efforts that continue to promote a safe, welcoming and inclusive school environment for all students,” the school district said in a statement. “As a District, we believe communication and honesty between students and families is profoundly important, and we encourage families to speak about sensitive and important matters.”
Andrea Murphy, a district parent, said she was not in support of the change to district policy.
“It’s just wild to me that there are people out there that are yelling out for parent rights but whose looking at the kids?” Murphy said. “There are supporters out there. There are people who love them and support them and want to keep them safe, especially in schools.”
Cara Hytoff said that while she lives in the area, she has since pulled her students out of the school district. She said she is in support of the board changing its policy.
“We really want parents to be notified of very important mental and health things that are going on with their students and we feel that teachers keeping secrets is not good for kids. It’s not good for families. It’s not good for teachers,” she said.
Following the vote, the board president said further staff action would be needed before the formal implementation of the change.
The proposed policy for transgender or nonbinary students has an exception, delaying notification if there’s evidence of safety concerns for the child.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has joined LGBTQ+ advocates in condemning similar efforts by other school districts to require parental notification if kids change their pronouns, saying the efforts amount to forced outings of children who are not ready or feel safe sharing their gender identity with their families.
Proponents of the policies say parents have a right to know and be involved in these discussions with their children.
A judge in Southern California temporarily halted Chino Valley Unified School District’s parental notification policy while a lawsuit that Bonta filed against the district continues.
Earlier this month, the Rocklin Unified School District passed a similar measure and the Buckeye Union School District in El Dorado Hills is also considering a parental notification policy.
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