What You Need to Know About the Parents' Bill of Rights

Welcome to Family Policy Matters, an engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, this is John Rustin, President of NC Family, and we're grateful to have you with us for this week's program.

It's our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged, and inspired by what you hear on Family Policy Matters, and that you will feel better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. And now, here is our host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy Devitt-Griggs. Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. Parental rights have moved to the forefront of national, state, and local political conversation in recent years, and North Carolina is no different. Almost two dozen North Carolina state senators have sponsored a parental rights bill this legislative session that aims to affirm, strengthen, and protect the rights of parents in North Carolina to actually allow them to take an active role in their child's education and healthcare. Senator Amy Gailey is one of the primary co-sponsors of SB 49, Parent's Bill of Rights. She's in her second term representing Alamance and Randolph Counties in the North Carolina State House, and we're grateful to have her join us today to discuss this important bill. Senator Amy Gailey, welcome to Family Policy Matters. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to be with you. So start off by telling us why this bill is even necessary. What is the current status of parental rights here in North Carolina? So I think that many people who have had children in public school in North Carolina, either they or a family member or a friend, experience the situation where you have a conflict with a teacher or an administrator, and you don't know what your rights are.

You have a feeling that something's not right, that things should be handled differently, but you don't really know what your rights are, or you don't have an idea about how to exercise those rights. What is the school system supposed to do when you have an issue or a problem? So that is essentially the question or the problem that this bill seeks to address.

When is the family getting stiff-armed by the local education unit or getting the runaround, and how do you cut through that? Can you give us some examples of some problems that may have prompted the introduction of this bill? Well, obviously there's a lot of concern in this country about the sexualization of our little children, an introduction of more adult issues to children. So this bill, one of the things it does is for children who are in grades K through 4, they are not allowed to have in their curriculum, which is defined in the stats in the bill, there would be no instruction on gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality. Because what we've heard across the state and really across the country is that there are people who are inserting adult issues, adult themes, into our elementary schools.

So this bill, one of the things it seeks to do is to address that. So you're not anti these kinds of discussions, as we might be led to believe by some of the news coverage that we're seeing then. One thing we should all be able to agree on is that discussion of sexual activity has no place in kindergarten through fourth grade. Kindergartners go to school to learn how to use scissors, to learn their alphabet, to learn how to tell time on a face clock. They don't go to school to learn about sophisticated adult sexual issues. So this bill seeks to address that by saying that instruction shall not be included in the curriculum for those grades for gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality. That doesn't mean that a little child who comes from a family that has untraditional, non-traditional parents should feel excluded or singled out or anything. Everybody should be welcome in our public school classrooms. But also those conservative parents shouldn't feel like they have to check their values at the door either if they don't want their children to learn about things at a certain age. You mentioned that sexuality and gender identity instruction is one thing that the bill would address in the education environment.

Are there other things that it would change or reinforce there? Yes, so that's one of the more spotlight issues of the bill. There are a lot of things in this bill that people I guess have tacitly agreed on. One of them is that the parent should have the right to be promptly notified if an employee of the state suspects that a criminal offense has been committed against the child. So as it is now in the state of North Carolina, if your child is the victim of a criminal offense at school, the school system doesn't have to tell you. Well, I think they should have to tell you that. Another thing that's in the bill is that parents would have the right to find out what books or to review all available records of materials their child has borrowed from the school library. So it's not that the school is going to send the parents a list, you know, update it and that it's continual surveillance, but if the parent has a question or if they have a concern, then they have the right to review those records. Now this also has some impact on medical decisions as well.

What are those? Right. So it should be the only parents or somebody who is a legal guardian who has legal custody of the minor child can consent to medical treatment. One of the things that we've seen in the news from California is that you have California school districts that are encouraging children in gender transition behind the parent's back and without the parent's approval. And this bill would definitely prevent that as well as other kinds of medical care, unless there's a specific exemption that already exists. So, if the parent can't be found. If you don't know the child's name. If the child is about to, you know, in a life threatening situations and obviously you should be able to give that child medical care. And then there were some pre-existing carve-outs in North Carolina law, like if the child has a sexually transmitted disease, then that minor child can still get treatment for that without the parent's consent. But other than those limited exceptions, the person who has the legal custody of the minor child, including their natural parent, adoptive parent or legal guardian, that should be the person to consent to medical treatment for minor children. Another place that this came up in the last few years, some people may remember the vaccines and how a lot of parents didn't want their children having the vaccine pushed on them at school.

So, that was another aspect of it. You're listening to Family Policy Matters, a weekly radio show and podcast of the North Carolina Family Policy Council. This is just one of the many ways NC Family works to educate and inform citizens across North Carolina about policy issues that impact North Carolina families. Our vision is to create a state and nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive and life is cherished. For more information about NC Family and how you can help us to achieve this incredible vision for our state and nation, visit our website at ncfamily.org. Again, that's ncfamily.org and be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts and of course our flagship publication, Family North Carolina Magazine.

We'd also love for you to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. All right, so how does this bill that's proposed in North Carolina compare to others in other states? I have to say that I have not compared this bill with those of other states myself. My understanding is that it is really homegrown to deal with North Carolina issues, but also to address those concerns that parents have that their family values are being undermined by the school system, by a government-led school system. One of the important things to think about when you're considering these issues of sending our children to school is that the schools are, we're talking about public education which is paid for, funded by the government. The teachers are government employees and to me it's very important, just like it was to the United States Supreme Court when they were considering the issue of prayer in schools. Now of course we have the First Amendment that says that there should be no state-sponsored religion and that was important in the court's reasoning in saying you can't pray in schools. But also important in their reasoning was that the children are a captive audience who is not allowed to leave, they are immature in their ability to reason and also we have compulsory attendance laws where not only can they not leave but also they're required to be there.

So when you have that combination of factors, the government can't indoctrinate in a particular faith view. And in my view, secular humanism, atheism are religions too and minority parents who are Christian, who are Muslim, who are Jewish, they should be able to send their children to government schools as well with confidence that their family values aren't going to be undermined. What kind of response are you receiving from your colleagues regarding this bill? The Republican colleagues that I serve with have been extremely supportive and glad that we have run this bill and taken on this issue of parental rights and having the school system to be responsive to parents' concerns and implement policies and procedures so that parents have a pathway to get those concerns resolved. Other people across the aisle have really focused on really narrow parts of the bill and have made it to be something that it's really not, which is unfortunate. My constituents, the people back home, have been extremely supportive and really glad.

The experience of being stiff-lined by your local school system unfortunately is not rare and people really feel like that everybody should be welcome at school, even if you're conservative, even if you're liberal. So where is SB 49 in the legislative process currently? It's gone over to the House. We passed it in the Senate and it sits right now in the House Rules Committee and they're deciding in the House whether or not they want to hear this bill or whether or not House members want to introduce their own bill with their own tweaks to it, a similar bill, and pass that and send it over to the Senate. There's different ways that legislation can make it across the finish line. The people in the House are, I think, weighing what they want to do and how they feel it procedurally is best to handle it. But the general precepts behind the bill have really great support and I'm confident that we'll be able to send something to the Governor to sign.

North Carolina, of course, we have a Democrat Governor and he's already said he's probably not going to sign this bill for a ridiculous reason, but we'll see what happens. Well, what is that ridiculous reason that he's saying that? He is saying that he's concerned that businesses will not want to come to North Carolina if we pass this parent's bill of rights, that there would be corporations which are willing to do business in Dubai, go to Qatar with the World Cup, with soccer, that are willing to do business with China, that are willing to do business with Russia, but for some reason these corporations wouldn't want to come to North Carolina to do business because we don't want gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality taught to six-year-olds. And to me, that is preposterous. That is an excuse.

It makes no sense. Well, we're just about out of time for this week. Before we go, State Senator Amy Gailey, where can our listeners go if we want to either learn more about SB 49, parent's bill of rights, or follow some of these other things that may be happening on this issue in the North Carolina legislature? Yeah, I would encourage them to go to ncleg.gov. That is the website for the North Carolina General Assembly, and that's how you can find out what a bill's status is. And it also has the contact information for the Senators, as well as my contact information, and so they would be welcome to contact my office and sign up for our newsletter if they're inclined. North Carolina State Senator Amy Gailey, thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. Thank you. You've been listening to Family Policy Matters.

We hope you enjoyed the show and plan to tune in next week. To take action and encourage your representatives to support the parent's bill of rights, visit NC Family's Action Center at ncfamily.org forward slash action. That's ncfamily.org forward slash action. If you'd like to receive updates about this bill and others like it, make sure to sign up for NC Family's weekly emails and action alerts on our website at ncfamily.org.

Again, that's ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening, and may God bless you and your family. Thank you. Thank you.