NC legislative leader vows quick response to school board vote on Parents’ Bill of Rights
CORRECTION: The Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board amended the district’s policy in January 2024 to include the state’s prohibition on K-4 classroom instruction about gender identity, sexuality or sexual activity. Previous stories said the board rejected the K-4 instruction ban.
A school district’s decision Thursday night to reject a key part of the Parents’ Bill of Rights law got a quick response on Friday from legislators in Raleigh.
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board voted unanimously Thursday to approve several updated policies that align with North Carolina’s new law, approved last summer.
However, the board refused to include provisions requiring schools to notify parents before using a different name or pronouns for students.
State Senate Majority Whip Jim Perry, a Republican from Kinston, responded to a social media post Friday about the decision, saying that he had spoken Friday morning “with several colleagues.”
“A supermajority voted for this legislation,” he said in his response on X, formerly Twitter. “I look forward to addressing this lawless behavior in the short session. This presents a great opportunity to see where others stand on law and order.”
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board Chairman George Griffin said before Thursday’s decision that the board could face a legal challenge over its decision, but that it needs “to stand up and show people that somebody has the courage to say this is just morally wrong.”
Reached by phone Friday, Griffin told The News & Observer he had not seen the senator’s comments on social media, but that doesn’t change the board’s mission to do what it thinks is best for the welfare of its students.
“We’re not looking to be contrary or get into any kind of struggle with legislators or anybody else, and we hope that won’t happen,” Griffin said.
“Our sense of it, from what we learn, is there may be some repercussions and there may be some legal challenges, but we don’t know what that would consist of, so we were clear-eyed about it,” he said. “Anytime you go up against a regulation or a law, you run the risk of people not being happy about that.”
Democratic state Sen. Graig Meyer, who previously led the district’s Blue Ribbon Mentor-Advocate Program, said the Parents’ Bill of Rights should be challenged in court and he’s proud of the district’s decision to defend its students.
“The Republican majority has passed any number of unconstitutional laws and done so little to support students in public schools,” he said. “As I told my General Assembly colleagues in the debate of the bill, if I were back as a social worker in CHCCS and I had to decide between caring for a student and your stupid law, I would choose the student every single time.”
District aware of issues, had support
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board has spoken out against the Parents’ Bill of Rights since it was approved last year and first considered draft policy updates in November. The board asked its Policy Committee to consider more changes, including to the parental involvement policy. Other policies were revised to meet state requirements.
The requirement that was left out has been among the most controversial parts of the Parents’ Bill of Rights, prompting the Campaign for Southern Equality to pursue a federal Title IX complaint against the Buncombe County school system last year. The group also has threatened to take legal action against the state.
Griffin said a Campaign for Southern Equality spokesperson had reached out to his board following its November discussion, but they haven’t heard anything since then.
The board had strong support from the heavily Democratic-leaning district for the decision, including most of the emails they received, board members said. All of the speakers during Thursday’s public comment period also favored the decision.
Board members were aware of the potential consequences, and Vice Chair Riza Jenkins reminded them Thursday that a legal challenge might affect the district’s fiscal needs and responsibilities before she voted in favor of the policies.
The N.C. Board of Education has approved a process for how it will handle grievances that are appealed after a parent attempts to get the issues resolved by their child’s school or district.
This story was originally published January 19, 2024 at 1:43 PM.
