Wake schools moving policy changes forward with 'Parents' Bill of Rights' compliance

A Wake County school board committee has moved forward with some policy changes on how to implement a controversial law that Republican supporters call the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

The board’s policy committee Tuesday voted to send some policy changes to the board’s next regular meeting Oct. 3. The full board must approve of a policy or policy change twice at two separate regular meetings before they can become official.

Those include policies or policy changes requiring parents to be notified of survey questions being asked of students, permitting parents to request a list of materials their children have checked out from the library, and stating that staff should never encourage or coerce a child into keeping a secret from their parents.

The law requires parental notification of students’ wishes to go by a different name or gender identity, schools to facilitate parental concern hearings upon request, parents to have access to a list of materials their children have checked out from the library and tighter timelines for supplying information to parents and guardians.

Public schools must be in compliance with the bulk of the law by Jan. 1, an extension of a few months after state Superintendent Catherine Truitt asked lawmakers to give schools more time. Truitt said this month that schools still had a lot of questions about the scope and intent of parts of the law. Lawmakers included the extension in the new state budget, which was passed in the legislature last week. Gov. Roy Cooper said he would allow to become law without his signature later this month.

The Wake committee is considering a few policy recommendations that are coming from the North Carolina School Boards Association. The association provides legal guidance to school boards across the state on implementing policies, which are then usually adopted with relative uniformity across school boards. The committee will have more proposed changed to consider later this fall to continue preparing to comply with the law, including on parental notifications and sex education.

The committee spent considerable time Tuesday debating how parents should be notified of the survey questions. Currently, the school system already asks parents for their consent for surveys related to sensitive information. But the new law requires the school system to send them copies of the survey questions, as well, at least 10 days in advance.

Board Member Cheryl Caulfield worried about how easy it would be for parents to access the questions. She suggested the questions be included along with beginning-of-school paperwork that parents know every year they must do, rather than be posted in a portal for parents to go find.

Committee Chairwoman Monika Johnson-Hostler agreed with that approach for surveys known about well in advance, but she said some survey questions may not be available at the start of the school year.

The school system would include information on how to find the survey questions with the opt-in form sent to parents for each survey. That should be sufficient, some board members said.

“If [the parents] miss it, and they don’t opt in, the kid’s not going to see it,” Board Member Lynn Edmonds said. The child wouldn’t be surveyed, she said.

The board also voted to keep language stating that staff are permitted ot intervene in student health emergencies without parental consent, when failing to intervene could result in severe consequences. Many schools had been concerned the new Parents’ Bill of Rights would prohibit that by requiring parental consent for all medical treatment of students. The new state budget, which also included the implementation delay, attempted to address those concerns by stating staff could intervene in emergencies without permission.