Transparency Interferes With Trans-ing the Kids

This is something we all agree with. The argument is whether that result is good or bad.

by Sue Greenwald, M.D.

We listened with interest to the public comments regarding Senator Murman’s Parental Rights and School Transparency Bill for 2024 -LB1399. Please read it, it isn’t long.

LB 1399 text. (A proposed amendment would change the opt out requirement for surveys to an opt in requirement.)

The intent of the law is summed on page 2;

“(2) The Legislature finds and declares:

(a) That the parental involvement of parents, guardians, and educational decisionmakers is a key factor in the education of children;

(b) That parents, guardians, and educational decisionmakers possess the natural and legal right and need to be completely informed of all educational content and practices involving their children; and

(c) That public schools should foster and facilitate the fullest transparency allowed by law to parents, guardians, and educational decisionmakers by providing access to all information about educational content and practices involving their children.”

Section 3 declares that parents have a right to:

“…curriculum materials, textbooks, digital educational materials, websites or applications used for learning, testing information, library materials, activities information, and training materials for teachers, administrators, and staff within ten business days of a request for such access and how such access will be provided.”

It requires that schools provide the least restrictive means by which a parent may opt their student out of lessons they find objectionable. Also that the school have a policy for accomodating parents who may want to “to attend and monitor courses, assemblies, counseling sessions, and other instructional activities.”

Section 7 of the bill addresses student surveys. Parents need to Opt In (once the amendment is added) to the survey. In order to be informed they are to have written information about why the survey is being given, who is giving it, what the purpose is, how the data will be used and who will maintain the data. These seem like reasonable things to know.

In Section 3 there is a line about letting parents review the personal survey results of their children. Critics pointed out that this is an invasion of the student’s privacy. We agree. Students need to be made aware they can decline the survey. If students consent to take the survey, they should not have to worry about their individual answers being released to anyone, including their parents.

We have written at length about how the school districts hire consultants to survey students on topics such as sexuality, religion, and politics which the schools are forbidden by federal law to ask. As this data is collected by parties which are unaccountable to privacy laws and able to share or sell the data at will, this presents a very real problem for our future citizens.

Opting Out or Opting In for Student Privacy, Sleepwalking Into Slavery, How Do I Protect My Student’s Privacy Part 1 and Part 2.

Section 6 of the bill addresses the pornographic nature of many of the library books found in school libraries today. Parents have been vocal and ignored by school districts on what the parents see as an egregious overstepping of schools into the realm of what is and is not acceptable in the family culture.

Most schools have a computerized system to catalog and check out books. It would not be a hardship for schools to open up that system to parents, especially in the younger grades, so they can see what book their child has and when it is due back. Detractors of the bill said this would make work for librarians. If it is done correctly it would actually save them work.

The bill requires schools to have a policy to challenge books that parents find objectionable. Many schools in Nebraska do not have a policy. We agree that this section is somewhat confusing and could be tightened up. Detractors questioned section 6 (3) where parents can read a book aloud at a school board meeting. In truth parents already have that right, but in this era of parents being investigated by the FBI as domestic terrorists, maybe it needs to be said.

In short, there are some reasonable things to debate about this bill, therefore, we were surprised, but shouldn’t have been, when the opponents mainly talked about sex.

For background, Protect Nebraska Children Coalition was on the forefront of battling the State Board of Education in 2021 when the board wanted to insert Comprehensive Sexuality Education (What Is CSE?) into the state educational standards. For the uninitiated, this is a curriculum guide that was developed by Planned Parenthood and their partners, which advocates transgender lessons as young as age 3, and “sexual pleasure” lessons by second grade. The curriculum advocates for the services that Planned Parenthood makes their money from: abortions and transgender hormones.

It was deja vu. The testimony against transparency was given by the same cast of characters who fought to sexualize children, and the words were nearly indentical.

There was the Women’s Fund of Omaha and OutNebraska lobbying for transgender rights (and their right to profit from same). The trans-activists were out in force declaring that all parents are abusive, and that if their parents had been notified about their transition it would have been very bad. (Weirdly, proving the case for transparency).

The repeated argument against survey transparency is that a student’s sexuality might be “outed.” That is kind of our whole point. Students receive no personal advantage from taking those surveys, in fact they are protected by federal law if they refuse. They need to know that. When did student sexuality become any of the schools’ business?

Again for the uninitiated, in transgender culture, youth are actively encouraged to shun their parents and are rewarded socially for doing so. In the parlance of “gender-affirming care,” a parent who raises objection to the neutering of their offspring is considered “abusive” to the point of deserving to lose parental rights. It is easy to find dozens of stories like this one, even in red states: Montana couple loses custody of 14-year-old daughter after opposing gender transition.

Let’s talk about child abuse. All school personnel are mandatory state reporters of real or suspected child abuse. If they suspect that a parent is abusive, they MUST report it to the police. Unless the school personnel involved has initiated a police report, they cannot make the excuse they are “preventing abuse” by concealing a child’s sexual orientation status from the parent. If school personnel are claiming abuse, but have not reported it, they are actually breaking the law and should be held accountable.

There were only 2 proponents who testified in person for the bill. Hopefully the committee won’t conclude from this that parents don’t care about this issue. On a weekday afternoon they are busy working and raising children. In order to testify, as dozens did last year for this same bill, they would have to find child care, take off from work, drive much of the day, and sit in the hearing room the rest of the day. Parents from the western half of the state would need to have overnight accommodations. It was assumed that the concerns expressed last year for this same bill would be seen to carry over, but that might be wishful thinking.

It wasn’t lost on observers that most testifiers against the bill were either activists or paid lobbyists. There was the ACLU (who ironically is against parental rights), and the Nebraska Association of School Boards (whose national organization invented the entire “parents are domestic terrorists” issue), and the NSEA (who is famous for petitioning against school choice).

The Nebraska Library Association was there to put in their two cents about “banning books,” despite there being nothing in the bill about removing books. Their representative said parents should “trust the experts,” a totally laughable statement in a post COVID world. Lately, the “experts” tend to have an agenda.

There were more teachers and administrators opposing the bill, some of whom raised valid questions as outlined above, but most agreeing that this whole issue is really the fault of the parents.

Schools say the parents they are insisting on keeping at arm’s length are just not involved enough.

One teacher said her school is transparent, everything is available on the chomebook if they just get the password from their child. Most parents don’t bother she said. Our rebuttal is- that’s great for you. If you are already transparent then this bill should not inconvenience you. Wouldn’t it be great if all Nebraska schools were like yours? Maybe more parents would bother.

There were references as to how a school could possibly accomodate parents who willy-nilly want to observe the classroom. That would be so disruptive! Trust the experts! However, the bill only states there needs to be a policy to accomodate. The school district would make the policy. Besides, parents are just not involved enough, remember? So, it shouldn’t be a big issue.

The truth is, administrators are not concerned about the uninvolved parents, they don’t want to deal with the involved ones. There is a culture of secrecy in our schools. Parents are described as either abusive or uninvolved, but they are vilified either way. More and more of them are voting with their feet, and who can blame them?

LB 1399 isn’t perfect. But, this is a necessary conversation to have, and at some point, when all the improvements are made, it needs to be passed into law.

The author is a retired Pediatrician with extensive experience in the area of child abuse, and a co-founder of Protect Nebraska Children Coalition.