Helpful Back to School Information

The season for summer fun, pool parties, and family vacations is wrapping up, and over the next few weeks in Virginia many kids (and especially parents) will be celebrating the return to school. The back-to-school experience can be a fun time of shopping for school supplies, meeting new teachers, and beginning new stages of your child’s spiritual, emotional, and educational development. It can also be an anxious time for parents and kids with all of the controversial issues challenging family values. Here are a few things to keep in mind as we head into the 2022-2023 school year.

Family Life Education opt-out – At the start of each school year, parents have the opportunity and the legal right to review the school’s family life education (FLE) curriculum (i.e. “Sex Ed”) and decide if they want to “opt-out” their child from participating in this instruction. FLE topics can be quite sensitive, and often include explicit sexual and graphic content. To learn more about the FLE program in your school division, visit our Family Life Education resources.

Anti-bullying/Suicide content review – Parents have the right to review any audio-visual materials containing graphic sexual or violent images used in any anti-bullying or suicide prevention lessons in public schools. And just like with FLE, parents have the ability to exclude their child if they deem the materials too graphic.

Parental oversight of sexually explicit materials – The Virginia Department of Education finalized its Model Policies for Sexually Explicit Materials in accordance with SB 656 (R-Dunnavant), which the General Assembly passed this year. Schools are required to notify parents of any instructional material that includes sexually explicit content and to offer alternative, non-explicit instructional material in its place. Local school divisions must implement these policies by January 1, 2023.

Protect Every Kid Initiative – Be sure to check out resources through our Protect Every Kid Initiative,which is intended to help parents battle for the physical safety, hearts, and minds of their children. We’ve created some helpful resources to help you push back against the onslaught of attempts to subvert parental authority through explicit content, Marxist-themed lessons and training materials, etc.

And of course, be intentional with your child to hear what they are learning at school, and pay attention to their homework to ensure class assignments are not infringing on your values. And don’t be afraid to have real conversations with your kids about controversial topics - they should learn about these things from you, not the school.

Working to Expand Education Opportunities

Unfortunately, not all families are excited about the start of the school year because they may be in an underperforming school or a school that does not meet their child’s education needs, and in Virginia there are simply not enough education options available. While some families across our state have the opportunity to choose private school or homeschool options, many families are at the mercy of the public education system with its worldly themes and agendas that have no biblical, or even constitutional, foundation.

That’s why we are working to broaden education opportunities in Virginia, including expanding the current Education Improvement Scholarship program and introducing education savings accounts (ESAs), which will allow parents of students to use the state funds appropriated for their child to pay for an education at a private elementary school or secondary school that better meets their child’s needs. We’ve partnered with other groups like Middle Resolution, Thomas Jefferson Institute, Heritage Action, Americans for Prosperity, and the Virginia Institute for Public Policy to increase support for more opportunities in education and improved curriculum transparency in the public schools.

The road to more education opportunities in Virginia will be an uphill battle, given the current composition in the General Assembly, but we are committed to helping shepherd more options for families through the legislative process, and into law.