Testing New Law, Cajon Valley Will Require Staff To Tell Parents If Young Students Change Identity

By Jakob McWhinney, Deborah Sullivan, Brennan and Jakob McWhinney, the Voice of San Diego

August 19, 2024

Last month. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the SAFETY Act into law. The law restricts school districts from requiring teachers to tell parents if their child asks to go by a name or pronouns that differ from what they were assigned at birth. It’s meant to prevent what advocates call the “forced outing,” of trans students by educators.

But last night, Cajon Valley Union School District’s board passed a resolution that requires district employees to notify parents or guardians of students under 12 years old if their child requests to be identified by new pronouns. It was part of a broader resolution on parental rights.

It also requires educators to notify parents if a student would like to either go by a name “other than a commonly recognized diminutive of the child’s legal name” or access sex-segregated facilities like bathrooms that do not align with their gender at birth. Additionally, it restricts staff from referring students for medical treatment related to gender transition.

The resolution does include one carve-out: it prohibits notifications “when there is reasonable belief that doing so would subject a student to a risk of abuse, neglect or other substantial harm.”

The resolution’s passage may set the stage for yet another legal showdown about school district policies on LGBTQ+ issues.

When Gov. Newsom signed the bill into law, it ignited a firestorm of criticism, particularly among conservatives. Much of that criticism centered on a misrepresentation of what the law does, as our Deborah Sullivan Brennan recently reported. The law does not prevent educators from notifying parents or guardians that a student is choosing to go by a different name or pronoun than the one assigned at birth. Instead, it prevents districts from requiring schools to notify parents of such changes, as Cajon Valley’s new policy does.

Public comments at the meeting, both in opposition and support of the resolution, were heated.

“We are here because we believe there is a coordinated effort by some activist parents and activist teachers to inject a harmful radical gender ideology [into schools] underhandedly behind our backs … They’re doing this by inserting woke terminology into the curriculum, and we don’t appreciate it,” one speaker said.

Meanwhile, one speaker who opposed the policy said it was another attempt to target “children who happen to be LGBTQ,” and divide their community for political purposes.

This resolution “is about forcing our schools and teachers to inject themselves into something that could properly be a private discussion between parents and children, the family themselves. Government has no place in this discussion. Local laws should not impose rigid policies that interfere in our children’s unique personal and private lives. Teachers are there to teach, to mentor, to be trusted supporters of the students in their charge,” the speaker said.

Cajon Valley’s board ultimately voted unanimously to approve the resolution.

In a statement before the vote, Assemblymember Chris Ward, who introduced the SAFETY Act, wrote that the bill simply clarifies “existing law that says school board policies cannot require students to be forcibly outed, and any that do so are invalid.”

The law will also protect teachers who choose not to enforce policies like the one passed by Cajon Valley’s board, Ward added.

“It’s unfortunate the dogmatic beliefs of a few individuals continue to spread misinformation, distract and waste taxpayer money on political agenda items singling out LGBTQ+ students instead of focusing on improving the overall education of all students,” Ward wrote.

Aaron Marcus, an eighth-grade science teacher at Greenfield Middle School, has long been frustrated with what he views as the board of Cajon Valley “focusing on some kind of political agenda instead of just letting us keep kids safe and teach them.”

Cajon Valley has had numerous dustups around LGBTQ+ issues in recent years. Last year, staff was directed to remove posters that identified their classrooms as a “safe space,” for LGBTQ+ issues and just last month investigators for the California Department of Education found the district illegally removed mention of LGBTQ+ people from its curriculum.

“I don’t think this is about the kids. I think this is about the adults fighting out their culture wars and using the kids as pawns,” Marcus said.

He’s also frustrated by the distraction this policy may represent. He often has a half dozen kids in his classroom who want to go by some sort of nickname and if a student asks to be referred to as ‘Pat,’ “we just call them Pat, and we get back to science,” he said. Marcus feels this new policy will only serve to anger the state and will almost certainly result in some sort of legal action against Cajon Valley.

“And the district will end up spending a bunch of money on [lawsuits] instead of teaching kids how to read,” Marcus said. “It’s a distraction, and it’s political.”

There have indeed been multiple legal skirmishes related to parent notification policies in southern California alone. In one instance, two Escondido Union School District teachers challenged a district policy that required they use students’ preferred pronouns in class and their legal names when speaking with parents. In two other instances, state authorities either warned or sued districts that required parental notification of students’ transitions.

Cajon Valley seems to be well aware of the potential for litigation. The agenda for the closed session of last night’s meeting included a conference with legal counsel about anticipated litigation.

Board President Jim Miller said during the meeting the district had reviewed laws on the books and that “contrary to statements made tonight about existing state law, we actually follow existing state law.”

“I don’t see this, respectfully, as an outing concept. I just don’t. I see this as parents being involved in the upbringing of the children, especially young children, whom themselves have not fully matured and have the mental capacity to make certain decisions,” Miller said.

When it comes to the SAFETY Act, which doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1, Miller said there are “glaring interpretation opportunities,” that allow district employees to have voluntary conversations with parents. He didn’t clarify how the district’s policy would not run afoul of the SAFETY Act, which prevents teachers from being required to share the kind of information about students laid out in Cajon Valley’s resolution without student consent. He did reference litigation challenging the new law, however.

The policy does require members of schools’ administration to notify parents, not teachers. But that will inevitably mean teachers, who know their students best, will be tasked with reporting sensitive information to their higher ups, eighth-grade teacher Aaron Marcus said.

Regardless of what the district expects, Marcus said his goals will remain the same: to create a sense of trust with students and provide them with a good education. He doesn’t disagree with much of what’s in the resolution, but he feels teachers shouldn’t be put in this position.

“Ideally, parents would know their kids well enough that they would have this information or be part of it,” he said. “But if [kids] really don’t want to tell their parents, those are exactly the kids that we should be protecting.”

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