2020 Session Recap Part 2 - Parental Rights - What a Fight!
While parental rights may have felt overshadowed by all of the focus on life and religious liberty this year, it was a high-priority issue for us. We fought hard to pass several important bills to afford parents more options and oversight in their children’s education, and we fiercely opposed bills that infringed on parents’ ability to direct the health and well-being of their child.
Family Life Education (“Sex-Ed”) and School Choice
One of those bills we fought hard for, which The Family Foundation initiated, aimed to make “Sex-Ed”, or Family Life Education (FLE), curriculum available to all parents online in order to ensure better access so they can more readily review the sensitive and values-laden FLE materials. Delegate Jay Leftwich (R-Chesapeake) carried HB 1394 to accomplish that purpose. The final bill that passed will make available the complete FLE written instructional materials, including summaries of any audio-visual content, through an online parent portal. It provides parents the opportunity to review the materials without having to make a special appointment during school hours just to review hardcopies, which makes it much more convenient for working parents. This is a good transparency bill that now awaits the Governor’s action.
Our other top priority to require schools to obtain parents’ permission before their child participates in the "Sex Ed" lessons unfortunately failed. HB 683 (R-LaRock) didn’t make it out of a House Education subcommittee. For several years now, we have made this a major priority because of all the graphic and sexual content that is being pushed onto kids in various school districts. Regardless of who’s in power, we’ll keep fighting to make this common-sense policy a reality, but for now we can at least be thankful that the General Assembly passed legislation to ensure parents can actually see what’s being taught.
The standalone school choice initiative in Virginia – the Education Investment Scholarship Tax Credit Program – which was just expanded last year to include pre-kindergarten students was under threat of being eliminated completely. HB 521 (D-Bulova) would have repealed the entire tax credit program, which has enabled thousands of lower-income Virginia families to have an alternative educational option for their children in a private school of their choice – and all with private scholarship dollars. But along with our allies at the Catholic Conference and thousands of school choice advocates, we were able to convince Delegate Bulova to take his bill by for the year. However, that means we will have to be prepared to fight this battle again next year.
It’s also important to mention that aside from the effort to repeal the EISTC program, there were no direct attacks on home school families this year!
Maybe the best news of this year’s Session pertaining to parental rights was the incredible defeat of some truly terrible bills.
A memorable moment happened earlier in the session when a House subcommittee miraculously defeated a bill (HB 1051) brought by Delegate Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) that would have repealed statutory conscience protections for faith-based adoption and foster care agencies, a law The Family Foundation fought hard to put in place in 2012. It was a stunning moment when no one would “second” the motion to pass it! We worked with other groups to mobilize folks against this bill that clearly targeted faith-based nonprofits, but it was Pastor David Platt of McLean Bible Church who showed up to testify against the bill that stole the show.
But what happened next was almost as miraculous. Immediately after listening to all of the groups and Pastor David Platt, Delegate Elizabeth Guzman (D-Prince William, Chair of the subcommittee) asked to “Table” (i.e. defeat) her own bill HB 580, which would have added to the definition of “abused or neglected child” any child whose parent “allows to be created or inflicted upon such child a physical or mental injury on the basis of the child's gender identity or sexual orientation.” And then she adjourned the meeting! That bill posed a direct threat to a parent’s ability to raise their child in accordance with their values and to guide them away from thoughts or behaviors they know will be harmful to them. It was an incredible victory.
SB 104 (D- Favola), which incredibly would have allowed 14 year-olds to agree to get vaccines without parental consent, was another bill that died in committee. In fact, because of fierce opposition to this outrageous bill from concerned parent groups, the patron struck her own bill without a hearing!
Then there was SB 32 (D – Petersen), which would deem any parent or guardian who uses an inanimate object to punish a minor guilty of Class 4 misdemeanor. This was just another case of big brother attempting to dictate to parents how to raise their children and steer them towards good behavior.
Parents will no longer be able to take their children to licensed professionals if they want to overcome unwanted sexual desires.
This year LGBTQ advocates achieved another legislative priority which was to prevent parents from allowing trained licensed counselors to help their minor child overcome unwanted sexual desires through simple talk therapy. Under SB 245 (D-Surrovel) and HB 386 (D-Hope), which prohibits “conversion therapy” for minors, any licensed health professionals (counselors, psychologists, physicians, etc.) that merely provides talk therapy to overcome unwanted sexual desires risk having their license taken away, jeopardizing their careers and livelihood. Yet, these bills would allow licensed professionals to provide “acceptance, support, and understanding” to a minor undergoing “gender transition” or exploring unnatural sexual desires!
Unfortunately, a bill The Family Foundation initiated, HB 966 (R-Walker), which would have allowed health boards to promulgate regulations prohibiting the use of electroshock therapy or other non-speech therapy for minors seeking counseling for unwanted sexual feelings, but protecting talk therapy, failed to report out of a House subcommittee.
Another bill aimed at limiting the ability of a parent to direct the health of their child was SB 21 (D-Saslaw), which would have, among other things, REPEALED parental consent for a minor considering an abortion! SB 21 was incorporated into SB 733, and thankfully the portion of the bill that repealed parental consent did not stay in the final version. Nevertheless, this could be a bad omen of things to come for parental rights in Virginia.
Several bills passed this year make some massive changes to public schools.
There will be a massive overhaul of childhood care and education in Virginia as a result of HB 1012 (D-Bulova) and SB 578 (D-Howell). These bills require the Board of Education to establish a statewide unified public-private system for early childhood care and education (for three and four year olds) in the Commonwealth to be administered by the Board of Education, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Department of Education. In addition they transfer all of the licensing and regulatory responsibilities from the Department of Social Services to the Department of Education. As part of this major childhood care overhaul, the General Assembly is poised to allocate over $90 million in the 2020-2022 budget to establish uniform accountability standards and train more workers. Make no mistake, this is clearly designed as the first major step towards mandatory universal pre-K education in Virginia.
Finally, the radical Left took its push for acceptance of “transgenderism” in public schools to a new level by passing (and the Governor signed into law) HB 145 (D-Simon) and SB 161 (D-Boysko), which require the Department of Education to develop model polices concerning the treatment of “transgender” students in elementary and secondary schools, which includes bathrooms and locker room use, dress codes, pronoun use, and sex-specific school activities. It then requires every single school district to adopt policies that go at least as far as the Department’s model policies, and specifically allows them to go even further. These bills present a clear threat to the privacy, security and conscience rights of every student, teacher, and administrator in Virginia’s public schools, not to mention a direct challenge to the values of so many parents across the state.
There were too many other issues to include in this summary, so here is a list of other noteworthy bills pertaining to parental rights:
HB 1090 Required Immunizations – Amended the minimum vaccination requirements (awaiting Governor’s action).
HB 753 Dept. of Education to develop guidance standards for social-emotional learning (awaiting Governor’s action).
HB 1544 No can be strip searched without parental consent (awaiting Governor’s action).
HB 226 Students who receive home instruction can participate in inter-scholastic programs (Left in a House Education committee)
HB 270 Parental notification for public school lock-down drills (awaiting Governor’s action).
HB 410 Parental notification for any literacy and response to intervention screening and services (awaiting Governor’s action).
HB 516 Public schools, standard diploma requirements, dual-enrollment and work-based learning options. Includes HB 112. (Signed into law by the Governor on March 2, 2020).
HB 678 Parental Choice Education Savings Accounts (Left in House Education)
HB 797 Parental notification by local school boards if water testing indicates lead contamination (awaiting Governor’s action).
HB 916 and SB 853 Establishes a culturally Relevant and Inclusive Education Practices Advisory Committee - i.e., a “social justice task force.” (Awaiting Governor’s action).
SB 142 Virtual Virginia; availability to all public schools (Left in Conference Committee).
Overall, despite the losses on a few significant bills that we fought hard to advance or oppose this year, we were pleased to able to have a direct impact on some modest progress for parental rights and some critical defeats of dangerous ideas.
This is Part 2 of a multi-part General Assembly Recap Blog Series.
