> The district has 30 days to address their concerns.
Of which the parents are the sole judge of whether their concerns were adequately addressed before pursuing litigation.
> Second, giving ordinary people an actual legal channel to pursue a remedy, without bankrupting them with legal costs, is the sort of thing there should be more of.
Or, alternatively, giving nuisance litigators a way to make money if they find a plaintiff, which is what laws that provide injunctive-relief-plus-legal-costs tend to do.
> First, the teacher won't; the school district will. Nothing in the law makes teachers legally liable. All the liability is on the school district.
The teacher will absolutely face litigation and censure, which are the words I used. They won't have any monetary liability.
> Second, the teacher is not the sole judge of what's appropriate in the classroom. Parents have to have a voice.
You're free to argue that with your local school district's elected body, etc, instead of putting in place legislation which will cow all of these districts into preventing any such discussion.
It's funny how people love to move things to more local levels of government, until those bodies are not doing what they like. Then, it's time for legislative bodies to set standards for the whole state, country, etc.
> The right thing for the teacher to do in this kind of situation would be to bring the parent into the discussion themselves, so the teacher can support the student directly in that discussion, not to help the student to go behind the parent's back.
Sorry-- disagree. Students should be allowed to confide in educators and expect that those confidences will not be betrayed, unless there is an actual acute danger to the students in question. If a student wants to talk to me about not wanting to pursue the career path their parents have in mind, I'm allowed to talk to them, provide information on this, and I'm not expected to "snitch". But if the student asks me to call them "they/them", suddenly things should be super different? Spare me the pearl clutching.
Look, social mores about gender are fundamentally changing, and this is something that is going to happen. You just get to choose how much it sucks for kids in the process.
This law is intended to provide a small number of parents with an implicit veto over what is taught within their local school districts. It does so by placing the judgement over whether a conflict is "resolved" with the parents, and then empowering those parents to initiate a legal procedure that must be paid for by the school district (in the case of a special magistrate) or specifically contemplates "damages", attorney's fees, etc, being awarded to the parent who complains.
As there are no particular limits declared in the law, no school board can withstand a large enough number of attacks being conducted "in parallel", each of which must be paid for by the board.
What I find at least a little interesting is that there doesn't appear to be any contemplation of what happens when a parent sues in the opposite direction -- specifically saying that X and Y are age- and developmentally-appropriate topics for classroom instruction, and to avoid teaching them is inappropriate.
Maybe that's a stretch. But it doesn't really matter, because it's up to the parent to decide if their issue has been "resolved"...and the parent can just go straight to court if they don't like the answer.
> The teacher will absolutely face litigation and censure, which are the words I used.
Litigation? No. As I've already said, the teachers aren't legally liable. The school district is. So it's the school district that faces litigation, not the teacher.
Censure? By whom? By the parents? Well, yes, if the teacher is doing something that the parents strongly disagree with, they should expect to be censured by the parents.
Censure by someone else? Who? And on what basis? If it's because other people also think what the teacher did is wrong, isn't that, again, just what should be expected? And if other people don't think what the teacher did is wrong, why would they censure the teacher?
> Students should be allowed to confide in educators and expect that those confidences will not be betrayed
I don't see where the law requires a teacher to reveal something the student told them in confidence. The law says teachers should encourage the student to talk to the parents, but it doesn't require the teachers themselves to talk to the parents. (I agree that this means the teacher is not required to do what I suggested in my previous post, to bring the parents into the discussion themselves. I still think it's a good idea if it can be done, but it's not required by the law.) Nor does the law require teachers to reveal something that isn't part of the student's school record--which a confidential conversation wouldn't be. And the school district can't prohibit a teacher from talking to the parents, but it can't require them to either.
> if the student asks me to call them "they/them", suddenly things should be super different?
Nothing in the law singles out this kind of discussion between a student and a teacher. But note that asking the teacher to call them "they/them" in public is not a confidential request. (If it's just in private between the student and teacher and not in the public classroom, that's different.)
> social mores about gender are fundamentally changing
And there are deep divisions in our society about such changes. A teacher might have strong opinions on one side or the other. But as a teacher, they should not be pushing their personal agenda. They should be respecting all viewpoints, and that includes the viewpoints of the parents. If a teacher believes that any parent who objects to their child wanting to be called "they/them" is automatically abusing that child, that teacher has a personal agenda that should not be allowed to intrude into the school environment.
> You just get to choose how much it sucks for kids in the process.
I certainly agree that having adults in their lives who strongly disagree about basic aspects of life sucks for kids. But that strong disagreement is not just the fault of parents who are unwilling to consider change and let their kids explore new things. Ideologues who push their agendas on kids without regard for the viewpoints of the other adults in those kids' lives bear responsibility too.
> Litigation? No. As I've already said, the teachers aren't legally liable. The school district is. So it's the school district that faces litigation, not the teacher.
The teacher will not have to deal with the litigation? They're not going to have to show up to depositions, have their actions scrutinized and mocked by opposing counsel, etc?
In practice, this gives every parent a veto right: they can say they're not satisfied with what the district did, and tie educators up in litigation and cost the district a bunch of money.
> I don't see where the law requires a teacher to reveal something the student told them in confidence.
If Thomas says that he'd like to be called "Tom", this is a longstanding request that we'd have always complied with. We'd also typically ask how he'd like to be referred to on his report card and if this is something his parents know.
If Thomas says that they would prefer the pronoun 'she' and like to be called "Tammy"-- we're going to have to create a record of it. If Tammy then says she does not want her parents to know this, we still cannot withhold the information.
> And there are deep divisions in our society about such changes. A teacher might have strong opinions on one side or the other. But as a teacher, they should not be pushing their personal agenda. They should be respecting all viewpoints, and that includes the viewpoints of the parents.
In general, when it comes to the courtesy of names, and now pronouns: we do what students request. With information that students indicate their parents would not approve of, we keep confidences. If they say they don't want to be a nurse like Mom and Dad want, and are thinking of an alternative path, we advise them as best as we can. If they say they want to be referred to be 'she' and their parents will freak out, we keep it in confidence.
> Ideologues who push their agendas on kids without regard for the viewpoints of the other adults in those kids' lives bear responsibility too.
I don't favor "pushing agendas" on kids. But the kids are talking about gender and sexuality among themselves in terms largely unfamiliar to you and me, and there's major social change underfoot. Kids deserve teachers that will A) respect reasonable requests made by students for how they are addressed, B) keep confidences, and C) help them navigate this new world as best as we can. Pushing these concerns into the dark or being a conduit directly to parents is not beneficial for student safety or mental health. If you think these changes are largely driven by school staff I think you are highly confused.
Of which the parents are the sole judge of whether their concerns were adequately addressed before pursuing litigation.
> Second, giving ordinary people an actual legal channel to pursue a remedy, without bankrupting them with legal costs, is the sort of thing there should be more of.
Or, alternatively, giving nuisance litigators a way to make money if they find a plaintiff, which is what laws that provide injunctive-relief-plus-legal-costs tend to do.
> First, the teacher won't; the school district will. Nothing in the law makes teachers legally liable. All the liability is on the school district.
The teacher will absolutely face litigation and censure, which are the words I used. They won't have any monetary liability.
> Second, the teacher is not the sole judge of what's appropriate in the classroom. Parents have to have a voice.
You're free to argue that with your local school district's elected body, etc, instead of putting in place legislation which will cow all of these districts into preventing any such discussion.
It's funny how people love to move things to more local levels of government, until those bodies are not doing what they like. Then, it's time for legislative bodies to set standards for the whole state, country, etc.
> The right thing for the teacher to do in this kind of situation would be to bring the parent into the discussion themselves, so the teacher can support the student directly in that discussion, not to help the student to go behind the parent's back.
Sorry-- disagree. Students should be allowed to confide in educators and expect that those confidences will not be betrayed, unless there is an actual acute danger to the students in question. If a student wants to talk to me about not wanting to pursue the career path their parents have in mind, I'm allowed to talk to them, provide information on this, and I'm not expected to "snitch". But if the student asks me to call them "they/them", suddenly things should be super different? Spare me the pearl clutching.
Look, social mores about gender are fundamentally changing, and this is something that is going to happen. You just get to choose how much it sucks for kids in the process.