NC school year to begin under new parental rights law
As students around the state prepare to return next week for the start of the traditional school year, teachers are trying to figure out what they’ll need to do to comply with the newly enacted Parents’ Bill of Rights.
Republican state lawmakers overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the bill last week. All but one section took effect immediately, leaving teachers little time to adjust lesson plans or change classroom materials.
The law forbids any instruction or discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through fourth grade. And it requires schools to get parental consent before allowing a child to use a different name, pronouns or identifying themselves as something other than their gender at birth.
It also requires districts to more fully inform parents about how to object to materials or curriculum topics, how to file a formal complaint and how to opt their students out of surveys on topics the parents might find inappropriate.
Local school boards will have to meet to draft and approve policies to implement the new law. That will take some time. But the law is in effect now, and teachers could be disciplined if they violate it.
Supporters of the law say it was needed to safeguard children. Sponsors said they heard from parents who faced difficulty getting schools to give them information about their children and what the students are learning.
Tamika Walker-Kelly is president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, the state’s largest teachers’ group. She says most of the parental rights enumerated in the new law have already been the law for years.
“This is not an effort to increase the effectiveness of school or actually grant parents any more rights than they already had previously,” Kelly said. “Unfortunately, we've seen these culture wars, these partisan politics insert into our school functioning.
“We are seeing a piece of legislation that was intended to create a divide between educators and parents, to seem as if educators and parents are not working together to ensure the academic and overall success of students,” she added.
Kelly says teachers are most concerned with the effect the new law will have on LGBTQ+ students and families, especially the provision that requires schools to inform parents if a student is questioning their own gender.
“We know that not every student who comes to us at school has a caring adult, and sometimes the educator or the school personnel is that caring adult for that student,” Kelly said. “It is our responsibility, part of our professional standards and code of ethics, to think about first the priority of the student, their health and safety. We will continue to navigate that as educators, but this provision in the law does make that a lot more difficult.”
It’s also likely to be time- and resource-intensive for school districts. During the veto override debate, Rep. Laura Budd, D-Mecklenburg, said the law will require her school district to create or modify 25 policies, regulations and operational guidelines.
“It will take hours and hours of meetings,” Budd argued. “Those meetings are time that is going to be spent by school officials and the board of education so they can be in compliance with North Carolina law, instead of spending that time recruiting, training and putting a living, breathing teacher in every single classroom.”
Earlier in the summer, legislative leaders had discussed delaying the start of the law to give districts time to implement it, but that change did not happen before the veto was overridden.
House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, supported the new law. He said he hasn’t heard any complaints about it from his local district, and he doesn’t expect implementation to be that difficult.
“It’s really a common-sense law,” Moore told reporters last week. “It’s something that so many of us think should have been done already — letting parents have these decisions, have this information about their child’s education. So it is the law, and I expect they’ll follow it.”
Wake County Public School System spokeswoman Lisa Luten said attorneys at the state’s Department of Public Instruction are currently reviewing the new law and are expected to issue guidance soon to districts around the state.
