When does it become irresponsible to send children to a public school?
Has the line been crossed in Fairfax County, Virginia?
Their school board now prohibits teachers from telling parents when children “change gender” or pretend to change gender. Such decisions may be evidenced by a student’s changing his name or by identifying as a member of the opposite sex or as “nonbinary” on a school’s learning portal.
The district is not inviting teachers to exercise discretion about whether to inform parents. One can imagine cases in which a teacher knows parents to be physically abusive and likely to come down on a kid like a ton of bricks if alerted to such an event.
Rather, the policy stipulates that parents needn’t ever be told about such matters. To the extent teachers obey, parents won’t know unless informed by the children themselves.
If you live in Fairfax County, you could protest.
And you could do other things, such as
- attend school board meetings to object, as parents attended a Fairfax board meeting to object to the policy of suspending fourth-graders for using the “wrong” pronouns for classmates;
- join the shadow board that parents have formed to criticize the doings of the Fairfax County board;
- vote against a school board member or try to recall members — unless a judge decides that your recall petition fails to show “probable cause for removal.”
Or you could just get your kids the heck out of the public schools.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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(simplified and organized)
Which went through my mind when I read an email from the Virginia PTA — the Parent Teacher Association. The group’s Janet Ciaravino urged its cadre to: “Let [legislators] know that public school is your choice and team sports are a privilege you earned and expect them to protect.”