Victory Alert: Senate Bends on Parental Review and Open Schools!

What an amazing week this has been!  From protecting parental rights, to ensuring kids attend school in-person, to protecting vulnerable life beginning in the womb until natural death, we’ve experienced the incredible providence of God.

Yesterday morning, Democrat Senators Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax) and Lynwood Lewis (D-Accomac) joined the Republicans on the Senate Education and Health committee to approve SB 656, carried by Senator Siobhan Dunnavant (R-Henrico), which provides critical parental oversight of school instructional material.  This bill requires the Board of Education to establish policies for local school divisions to follow that require each public elementary or secondary school to provide parental notification and review of instructional material that includes sexually explicit content, and offer alternative instructional material to any student whose parent objects to the curriculum.

The committee also passed 9 – 6 another bill carried by Senator Dunnavant (SB 739) that requires school divisions to offer in-person instruction for at least the minimum number of required annual instructional hours necessary for each student.  This ensures that, except for days with inclement weather, our schools will remain open and in-person!

We were also pleased to see House committees pass some good bills and defeat some bad ones.  For every parent who is concerned about what government agencies are communicating to their children without their knowledge or consent, we are excited to report that a House Welfare and Institutions subcommittee approved HB 156 (R-Byron) which prohibits state and local health departments, and any entity they contract with, from contacting children about sex, sexuality, human reproduction, and other topics without parents’ consent.  This bill is intended to address government programs like the "Teen Sex Text Hotline" that was being promoted by the VDH during the summer of 2020.

Yesterday, a House General Laws committee approved HB 384 brought by Delegate Glen Davis (R-Virginia Beach), a bill initiated by The Family Foundation, which protects the ability of public employees, including teachers, to freely speak in their personal capacity about public policies and to not be compelled to speak certain messages they disagree with.  This legislation is partly in response to Loudoun County Schools' dismissal of Tanner Cross, a teacher who voiced his concerns and objections to a transgender policy that compels teachers to use a student’s preferred pronouns and allow biological males to use female locker rooms and changing facilities.  Tanner was reinstated by a court order.

In addition to the good bills that were passed, yesterday two dangerous bills were defeated.  HB 353 (D-Willett) would have allowed unaccompanied minors 14 years or older to be treated as an adult for purposes of consenting to certain medical treatment including elective surgeries and treatments, and possibly including transgender surgeries.  HB 480 (D-Helmer) would have required insurance providers to pay for infertility treatments for any single individual or couple (married or not), which would have resulted in the reckless proliferation of lab-created human embryos and the further erosion of the nuclear family.

Thanks to our Policy Team’s efforts to educate legislators about the threats these bills posed to parental rights and the devaluing of human life, they were defeated.  Please continue to pray for our team as they work hard to protect families and the sanctity of life.