'Parents' Bill of Rights': Now parents can suggest how Wake schools will implement new law

The Wake County school board will ask parents to provide feedback on a new parental involvement policy — partly designed to comply with a controversial new state law.

The school board's policy committee met Tuesday to briefly discuss the policy, asking some questions for clarity. Because the new policy is 14 pages long and is specific to parental involvement, officials will seek parent feedback on it in November. The school board wouldn't vote until December to approve the new policy. School system spokeswoman Lisa Luten said parents will receive information on how to provide input in the coming weeks.

The new state law, which Republican sponsors call the Parents’ Bill of Rights, covers an array of issues. It’s controversial because it contains other provisions that target gay and transgender students. It would require school employees to “out” some children to their families, if the child asks school employees to call them by a different name. That could endanger students who may not come from accepting households, critics argue. Supporters argue parents have an unabridged right to know things about their children.

It also places a timetable on schools to comply with certain records requests from parents, prohibits formal instruction related to sexual orientation or gender identity before fifth grade, and creates an appeals process for parents who feel their child’s school didn’t follow the policy. It requires a parental involvement program at each school, including information on their children’s grades, requirements, curriculum, volunteering and other matters. State lawmakers required school systems to comply with the law by January.

The Wake County Board of Education’s policy committee met Tuesday to discuss the proposal from school system leaders to write the new law into the board’s policy books.

Wake school leaders had already been working on a proposed parental involvement policy before the law was filed as Senate Bill 49, acting on a recommendation from the North Carolina School Boards Association. Much of the proposed policy is unrelated to the new law.

Outside of Senate Bill 49, the proposed policy requires parental notification of their legal rights as parents, access to a variety of academic information and the ability to opt their children out of sharing certain information.

When it comes to the new law, the proposed policy is a fairly faithful interpretation of the law, largely copying and pasting the law into policy.

Many of the items in the policy are already required by state or federal law, even before Senate Bill 49, and have appeared in other Wake County school board policies. People can view the proposal here, and see the changes related to Senate Bill 49 outlined in gray.

Guidance documents on how the law will be implemented — for example, what classroom teachers would be told to do if a child wanted to go by a different name or questions their gender — are separate from policy and won’t go before the board for any kind of approval.

The school system has for a few years asked parents to complete a permission form if the parent wants to change their child’s name or other information. That permission is separate from anything required by the new law and doesn’t mean a student couldn’t choose to go by a different name outside of official record-keeping.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated whether the new parental involvement program was required by Senate Bill 49. It is required by Senate Bill 49.