Students in California have been returning to school and families returning to their busy routines over the past few weeks. But this academic year will be different. 

Parents will now have fewer rights and decreased information than they did last year because this summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) passed the so-called Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth, or SAFETY Act — a bill designed to withhold sensitive information from parents.

This isn’t just isolated to California — it is part of a larger trend we have seen in the Democratic Party. Democrats do not think that parents should have a leading role in their children’s education, and they want to see government bureaucrats fill the void. 

In 2021, then-Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe infamously insinuated parents shouldn’t have a say in their children’s schooling. Democratic politicians, including Vice President Kamala Harris, routinely appear alongside anti-parent crusaders like Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who compared concerned parents to “segregationists.” 

Last year, every single Democrat in the House voted against a parental rights bill that would have given families more transparency on curricula and a right to be updated on information involving their children.

One of those bills included in the Parents Bill of Rights legislation was the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of their (PROTECT) Kids Act first introduced by Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Mich.). It was recently reintroduced by Rep. Walberg and just last week it advanced out of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce legislative mark-up. 

This is good news for parents. It is a straightforward bill that would require federally funded elementary and secondary schools to inform parents if their child tells a school employee if they want to be referred to by a different pronoun or gender. This is a significant development in a child’s life and a parent should absolutely be informed if those conversations are happening in schools. School districts should not become the arbiters of selectively deciding what information to share with parents.

District officials keeping information from parents is antithetical to the relationship school administrators and teachers should be building with families. Unfortunately, parental exclusion policies are becoming more widespread. According to an ongoing tracker by Parents Defending Education (PDE), there are now more than 1,100 school districts across the country — which include 12 million students — that currently have policies in place designed to keep information from parents. This is a dangerous trend and will inevitably result in schools keeping critical information from parents that can potentially harm students and prevent them from getting the support they need at home.

The examples PDE has uncovered show that some school officials are intentionally withholding information from parents. Some even know it is controversial but decide to work behind parents’ backs anyway. 

The examples are staggering, and have taken place across America. In the Exeter-West Greenwich, Rhode Island, school district, an administrator sent an email to all school staff updating them that a student prefers to use the new name, but it is only to be used in class and peers, and not with parents. In Hopewell Valley Regional School District, New Jersey, the “Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Student” policy states that “district and school personnel should not disclose a student’s transgender status to others, including, but not limited to, other students, parents, and/or other school personnel.” In Rochester Public Schools in Minnesota, the district has implemented a secret policy to instruct staff to keep gender identity from parents. If a teacher does not use a student’s preferred pronoun, they may face disciplinary action. In correspondence reviewed by PDE, the Superintendent admitted that the district may face “sticky situations” based on these controversial policies, but he decided to move forward with implementing them anyway.

There should be nothing controversial about keeping parents informed. In fact, polling reveals that an overwhelming majority of voters — including independents and Democrats — support policies that would require schools to inform parents if a student wants to change their gender identity. Three in four voters believe schools should require teachers and staff to inform parents if a student wants to be referred to by a different pronoun. Any policy designed to keep information from parents runs directly counter to what families across the country want to see in their children’s school.

Parental involvement is key to a child’s academic success. Schools should be focused on strengthening that relationship, not hindering it with bad policies meant to cut parents out of their children’s lives. To counter the epidemic of parental exclusion policies we are seeing across the country, we need pro-parent policies that will ensure full transparency when it comes to schools. Rep. Walberg’s PROTECT Kids Act will do just that and will help put parents back in the driver’s seat of their children’s education where they belong.

Michele Exner is a senior advisor at Parents Defending Education.