“Americans are losing faith in their schoolteachers,” the Washington Post proclaimed a year ago. Gee, I wonder why…
California’s woke attorney general, Rob Bonta, has filed a lawsuit against Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County to halt the county’s requirement that parents be notified when their child changes pronouns or gender identity, or seeks to use a bathroom assigned to a gender opposite to his or hers. In other words, the legal representative of the California state government wants the state to have the authority to withhold information about a family’s minor children from the parents of those children at the discretion of its agents. This attitude is now rampant in schools around the country, primarily because the education community has been thoroughly politicized and is no longer trustworthy.
Bonta, a Democrat (surprised?) says such policies amounted to the “forced outing” of transgender students. Once again, we have the totalitarian left manipulating language to confuse the public’s understanding of an issue.
Schools have custody of children for significant parts of the day, week and year, and as such owe a direct duty to the parents of the children to keep parents informed of all occurrences, incidents, events and developments related to the health, safety and welfare of those students. As such, they may not and must not withold such infotmation from parents no matter hwo much or how intensely the children would prefer otherwise. It is unethical for school personnel to side with children against their parents in the absence of clear evidence of criminal abuse and threats to the students’ health on the part of the parents.
It should not matter what the information is: a school has an obligation to report it to the parents in a timely fashion. If a qualified member of the school staff feels it is prudent to meet with the parents and a student regarding delicate information or when a student expresses extreme trepidation about revealing something to his or her family, that is certainly an acceptable course of action. However, no school personnel should be permitted to decide that the conduct and development of a child in their temporary custody as trusted caregivers can be legitimately withheld from that child’s family. Nor should developments related to sexual orientation be treated any differently from any other matter.
A child has the autonomy to keep secrets from his or her parents, or try to. That’s a family matter. The other adults involved in the rearing and education of a child, however, to be trusted as professionals must be trusted, have to treat parents as lawyers and doctors are required by their ethics rules to treat clients and patients: they must communicate all information that those who are trusting them would want to know and need to know.
California has developed an ethically sick culture with warped priorities and a frightening affection for allowing the government to veto the rights of individuals. This is one more example. Every rational ethical system would reject the rationale behind Bonta’s lawsuit, which courts too many slippery slopes to count.
This had better be, as the saying goes, nipped in the bud.
Ethics Alarms 
WA is basically here already. At 13 parents can no longer dictate the medical care of the child. You can go to court to have the State enforce something, but good luck with that. Of course I am still responsible for my kids until somewhere between 18 and 26, depending on the particulars.
Can’t say “nipped!”
(Hah)
Bonta – Only guy in all of California to be able to make former Atty Gen Kamala Harris look competent and, traditionally speaking, sane. The case calls for a smackdown .. directed verdict anyone?
A number of yayhoos volunteered that the blue cities’ social services could and should be expanded with the money freed up by defunding the police: that’s because social workers have done such a stellar job for years . . same for the California teachers – they can assume the rearing of our children.
Query (pardon the pun, I suppose): What on earth ever happened to PTAs? You know, Parent Teacher Associations? Where once a month the teachers and administrators of the school would meet and talk to the parents of the students. What a quaint concept, I guess.
I live in WA state and my daughter in law is a teacher. The schools and teachers are all onboard with hiding mental health issues from the parents. State law allows them to hide things because they all feel they know what’s best better than parents and have to protect the kids from the parents. My DIL also doesn’t understand why parents are pulling their kids out of schools at record rates. When I told her the schools blow the trust when they hide things, the response is it’s on the parents to figure out why their kids are hiding things. My response that they are kids and lack the life experience to know what’s best for them went right overhead. It’s a huge problem and not confined to CA.
JohnG
A better response would have been to say it is up to teachers to figure out why parents are losing trust.
If they want to play that game, they should not complain if they are not as bright as the parents.
-Jut
A person’s chosen pronouns have an interesting duality.
They’re so important that misusing them is justification for the destruction of a person’s livelihood and equivalent to genocide. Even choosing satirical pronouns for yourself is justification for blackballing.
But don’t you dare let a parent know… It’s perfectly all right for them to miss-noun those individuals under their direct care.
(How is this separation from family not recognized as the classic cult brainwashing tactic it is…?)
A 13 year old child may have many ‘secrets’ he keeps from his parents, sometimes quite justifiably. Hopefully he also holds some of the confidences of his friends too. Keeping ‘secrets’ and confiding are crucial part of growing up. Of course as a parent I’d like my child always to talk to me, but if he can’t or won’t, I’d like him to have other adults he can confide in – perhaps other relatives. The idea of locking my 13 year old child into a structure requiring any confidant always to report back to me is abhorrent, potentially condemning my beloved child into isolation.
Of course a teacher, or other professional receiving such confidences bears a very heavy responsibility and hopefully will be able to seek help and support. This is not, in my view, an area where blanket application of ‘law’ or professional standards is necessarily appropriate.
No one is saying that teachers need to share every detail of a child’s school life with their parents. There’s a difference between overhearing young Johnny discuss the latest episode of “My Little Pony” with his friends and having him demand that everyone treat him like a girl when he clearly is not. The former is a kid having his own interests, the latter is, at the very least, going to have a heavy impact on his social functionality, and hints at deeper issues regarding his mental state.
“The idea of locking my 13 year old child into a structure requiring any confidant always to report back to me is abhorrent, potentially condemning my beloved child into isolation,” with all due respect, is a strange and self-serving statement. Your thoughts on this issue exclude millions, literally millions, of other students and parents from maintaining their own family values and interests in the way the parents see fit for their child’s best interest and welfare. The laws in this nation and our states are not designed and enacted for individuals. Rather, they are designed for the repose (the good and peace) of society over all. I sincerely disagree with the notion that responsible citizens have intentional motives to lock 13-year-olds into a structure that would condemn beloved children into isolation — although that IS what the school systems and attorney generals (likely all far left Democrats) are doing that certainly will harm the “other” millions of beloved children who deserve protecting.
I am still troubled regarding this issue in general, and commenter Wakeling’s statement in particular. In thinking about this, I am wondering …and maybe some other commenter’s input might help: Do any parents, who would rather be “left out of the discussion” concerning serious matters of pronouns, gender identity and other similar important issues about a child’s life (both now and as a future adult who may end up living a life of regret), have genuine (real-time) discussions with their own child about these issues. Do any such parents actually tell their 13-year-old child, “Johnny (or Jennifer), as you parent I want you to know that at any time you begin to think about or wish to change your biological pronouns from him to her (or her to him), or if you wish to start hormone blockers, other medications, or begin medical procedures to change your sex, that I am “here for you.” “I am open to having those discussions with you and will help you in any way I can reach the best decision concerning what will be life-changing decisions”?
Any parent who would have such a responsible attitude about such important matters concerning their beloved child or children certainly would NOT OBJECT to their being laws enacted that would REQUIRE school teachers and administrators to timely notify parents of any child of who appears to be having trouble (mentally, emotionally, socially) with any of these issues. Such laws would serve to protect millions of children who need protecting.
For sure, parents who “don’t want to know” about what is going on in their child’s head would be against such laws. But such thinking gives no individual person a legitimate place to impose potential harm to millions of other children, and families, that would likely last for generations, just to “keep secret” life-changing matters.
I found Wakeling’s comment troubling, too. He obfuscates the kind of ‘secrets’ that are being kept- let’s be clear about what is being hidden from parents.
Confused kids are leading double lives (boy in one sphere, girl in another), and are being trained to distrust their parents. The default assumptions behind these policies are vile:
1. Schools are the primary caregivers for children, and not their parents.
2. Schools have kids’ best interests at heart and their parents do not.
3. Parents should be presumed to be abusive and cannot be trusted with vital information about their children’s well-being.
4. It’s abusive to believe that sex is immutable and to disbelieve in gender ideology.
What else are the schools happily hiding from parents? Surely you don’t think it stops at gender pronouns? My husband has quite a tale about a teacher/girls basketball coach at his school who had underage parties and sex with minors. He was quietly fired and spent his entire career coaching girl’s basketball and teaching. I know my kids school hides things, the one that bothers me the most is the surveys the kids take without my consent or knowledge until after the fact. Very 1984 if you ask me. Questions like do you have guns, drink, wear seatbelts, etc are on the list.