A San Bernardino County school district has revised its parental notification policy in the wake of California’s attorney general suing the district over alleged violations of the state constitution and state law, resulting in alleged discrimination against transgender students.
On March 7, the Chino Hills Unified School District updated a policy that had required the notification of parents when students requested changes to their student records, including the use of different pronouns or bathroom designations. The change came after Attorney General Rob Bonta last year filed a lawsuit against the school board in San Bernardino County Superior Court, resulting in a judge issuing a temporary restraining order against the notification policy.
Chino Hills board president, Sonja Shaw, said the policy change represents a middle-ground position.
“We remain committed to upholding the rights of parents while prioritizing student safety and well-being,” Shaw said in a statement emailed to the Record. “This new policy strikes a balance between these two important principles, ensuring that parents are kept informed every step of the way.”
The nonprofit Liberty Justice Center, which represents the district in the litigation, indicated that the district’s intent has been to ensure parents receive timely notification of any changes to their children’s records that relate to their physical, mental and emotional well-being.
“The updated policy maintains the district’s original requirement that school administrators notify parents within three days if their child requests changes to their official or unofficial records, but removed language from the policy requiring staff to notify parents when a student requests to use facilities or pronouns that differ from their sex at birth,” the center said in a news release.
One school board member, Corey DeAngelis, criticized the state’s continuing legal pressures.
“I can’t believe we’re at a point in America where authoritarians in power are fighting this hard to keep sexual secrets about children from their own parents,” DeAngelis said in a prepared statement. “They are now using the heavy hand of the state to subvert local control and try to strip away the most fundamental parental rights.”
Bonta’s lawsuit, however, alleges the motivation of school board members was to create a hostile, prejudicial environment for transgender and gender-nonconforming students.
“We’re in court challenging Chino Valley Unified’s forced outing policy for wrongfully and unconstitutionally discriminating against and violating the privacy rights of LGBTQ+ students,” Bonta said when the litigation was filed last year. “The forced outing policy wrongfully endangers the physical, mental and emotional well-being of nonconforming students who lack an accepting environment in the classroom and at home.”
The lawsuit alleges that the school district’s policy infringed on students’ civil rights and violated California’s equal protection clause, the state Education and Government Code and the state constitution’s guarantee of privacy rights.
It’s unclear if the district’s policy change this month will lead to the dismissal of the lawsuit.
“We are unable to comment at this time, as this is ongoing litigation,” the Attorney General’s Office said in an email to the Southern California Record.
A spokeswoman for the school district emphasized that the object of the injunction – Board Policy 5020.1 – was deleted by the school board on March 7.
“Board Policy 5010 … (was) approved that same evening and include(s) provisions from the former BP 5020.1 that the presiding judge did not place under the injunction,” the spokeswoman said in an email to the Record.