This Wednesday, the Senate Education Committee is again considering approval of a bill to require school districts to put their sex education material online for easy parental access. The same bill, SB 217, failed in March, even with the support of the committee chair Senator Connie Leyva (D-San Bernardino). The author Senator Brian Dahle (R-Redding) is hoping that removing the requirement that sex education lessons be translated into various languages, will guarantee passage this time.
The President of the California Family Council Jonathan Keller commended Senator Dahle for working hard to resurrect the commonsense proposal. âWhether they vote Democrat or Republican, all parents believe in government transparency, especially regarding the education of their children,â Keller said. âWe urge elected officials on both sides of the aisle to set aside partisan politics and support these reasonable protections for kids and families.âÂ
Senator Dahle believes the need for the bill has increased because of the pandemic. âGiven the new structure of our schooling system as changed due to COVID-19, we should encourage that parents actively participate in their childâs development and instruction,â Dahle wrote. âThe shift to internet-based and technology heavy education has forced schools to prevent parents from physically accessing the school campus during the pandemic. ⌠As such, we need to ensure that parents and students have access to all of the material and curriculum being taught by the school.â
The idea for this bill came from a Bay Area mother named Denise Pursche several years ago when her elementary school resisted showing her the new sex education curriculum to be used for her twin 5th graders. After being sent on detours, and then asking again and again, Denise finally got a chance to look at the actual lessons being used, but she could only review them at the school district office for a limited period of time. Once she saw the graphic, age-inappropriate content, Denise realized why school personnel tried to hide the curriculum from her.
It is common practice for school officials to require parents to come to the school or district offices during school hours if they want to review the sex-ed lessons, a difficult prospect for single parents or homes with two working parents.
With the help of the California Family Council, she got former Senator Mike Morrell to introduce SB 637, a bill not only required sex education materials to be translated into various languages and put online, but required schools to get parental permission before teaching comprehensive sex education to children in elementary school. Currently, parents can opt their children out of classes, but they must initiate the process.
The Senate Education Committee heard Morrellâs bill, SB 673, in January of 2020, but it died along party lines. The committee chair Senator Leyva said at the time she supported the transparency part of the bill, but not the opt-in procedure. So this year, Senator Dahle took Leyva at her word and introduced SB 217 that only included the transparency part of the bill, plus the costly provision that required the curriculum to be translated for parents who didnât read English. Unfortunately, the bill died 3 – 3, with Senator Richard Pan not voting.
Hopefully, with the cost-prohibitive translation provision removed, at least one of the four Democrats on the education committee, Senators Richard Pan, Dave Cortese, Steven Glazer, or Mike McGuire, will change their minds and vote for the bill. SB 217 is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Education Committee on the morning of Wednesday, April 28.
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CALL your State Senator and tell them to vote “Yes” on SB 217!
