NC's controversial new education bill likely won't be heard this session, speaker says
A wide-ranging education bill released last week in the North Carolina legislature likely won’t be heard this session, House of Representatives Speaker Tim Moore said Thursday.
Senate Bill 90 was originally filed to establish procedures for student searches and had passed through the Senate. Last week, it was amended shortly before the House Education Committee was set to hear it to add two dozen pages of new provisions, largely regarding parental consent and control in the state’s K-12 education system. The House committee pulled it from the agenda just before the meeting following concern and confusion from lawmakers, school administrators and others.
“I don't know that the votes are there for it,” Moore told reporters Thursday. Moore said he hadn’t gotten into the details of the legislation yet and that most policy-related committees are effectively shut down for the session already this year.
“I don't know that that bill is going to move this session,” Moore said. “There needs to be a lot more discussion in our caucus. And we'll have to see where the caucus comes down right now.”
Moore said he couldn’t recall all the hang-ups with bill but noted: “There was some pushback within the caucus about some provisions concerning librarians or books.”
The bill had several provisions concerning school and public libraries and would have handed more power for selecting books over to outside groups. It would have required librarians to keep books that would be considered too adult in an age-restricted area and would have allowed librarians and school leaders to be prosecuted for allowing certain materials to get into the hands of children. No library books could contain any descriptions of sexual acts, in any context under the proposal.
Because libraries contain thousands of books, librarians often select books based on reviews and recommendations from publications and professional groups; they do not read every book themselves.
While Moore said the bill is likely dead for the current session, highly contested bills are often re-filed and re-considered in subsequent years.
Senate Bill 90, as amended, would also make it easier for parents to get school superintendents fired and for students to change schools, while also revoking library cards for children if they don't have a parent's written permission.
The latest version of Senate Bill 90 is drawn from a number of ideas Republican lawmakers have already considered, and in some cases passed, this legislative session, but there are new sections, too. In all, the bill proposes dozens of changes pitched as ways to give parents more control over their child's education.
The bill, like another measure the governor has already vetoed, would require educators to tell parents if a child questions their gender and asks to go by different pronouns. It lays out a new process for picking textbooks and library books. It would repeal a current law that allows physicians to treat minors for mental health issues without telling their parents, and it would create a new group, largely appointed by the General Assembly's majority, to plan the curriculum for public schools statewide.
The bill would also allow charter schools to require that female students wear skirts, if school leaders wished. Debate over whether charter schools can do that has been the subject of a federal lawsuit.
The bill would also allow parents to sue school district superintendents in court for violating their “fundamental right to parent” their child. That fundamental right is defined only as the right to direct their child’s “upbringing, education, health care, and mental health.” The proposed legislation doesn’t spell out what would be considered a violation of their right to direct those things.
If five parents win their cases, the superintendent would have to be fired or lose a portion of their salary.
Rep. John Torbett, R-Gaston, said last week that’s appropriate “if they’re not paying attention and not dealing with the people they need to deal with when they have bad actors.”
After the bill was amended last week, Rep. Julie von Haefen, D-Wake, called the proposed bill "a license for book banning committees to run rampant" and for far-right groups to get school superintendents fired.
Superintendent tenure is shortening and turnover is rising in North Carolina and beyond, with experts saying politics are partly to blame.
