NC lawmakers hold Chapel Hill-Carrboro school leaders’ feet to fire over comments
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- House committee summons CHCCS leaders over compliance with 2023 Parents Bill.
- The bill requires parental notification when a child want to change their name or pronoun.
- Board said the law was discriminatory and raised concern about non-supportive parents.
The chairman of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board apologized to a state House committee Wednesday for not being more clear about his comments on a state parental rights law amid a barrage of questions and accusations about “woke” education.
School Board Chair George Griffin and CHCCS Superintendent Rodney Trice remained calm as they said repeatedly that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools does follow state law, despite Griffin’s previous comments that the law’s requirement to notify parents about student name and pronoun changes is discriminatory.
The board “followed the law that night, and have followed it since that time,” Griffin told the committee.
The state’s 2023 Parents Bill of Rights law generally defines how parents can stay informed and involved in decisions about their child’s health and education. It requires staff to notify parents before changing a student’s name or pronoun in the classroom or in school records and also bans instruction about gender identity, sexual activity or sexuality in kindergarten through fourth grade.
In 2024, the CHCCS school board complied with most of the law’s requirements, but stopped short of telling district staff to first notify parents about a student’s request to change a name or pronoun.
N.C. House Majority Leader Brenden Jones, a co-chair of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform, attacked Griffin and Trice multiple times during the two-hour hearing, claiming the district’s policies and teachings attempt to indoctrinate young students and subvert parental involvement.
In a dramatic moment, Jones read excerpts from three books meant for families of young children from a third-party list previously linked to the district’s website. As he finished, Jones threw each book over his shoulder and to the floor.
He also shared a letter that a parent sent to the district on the day of the 2024 vote, which claimed that a student was identified by a different name on a school document without the parent’s knowledge.
Jones accused Griffin of lying to the committee when he insisted that the district’s adopted policy complies with state law.
“This wasn’t passive resistance. It was a coordinated middle finger to this legislature and to every parent in your district,” Jones said. “Nobody in North Carolina is above the law, especially not a public official who holds the trust of our children.”
District debated discrimination concerns
Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board members and LGBTQ+ rights advocates have said the law was discriminatory and raises issues about the safety of LGBTQ students who lack supportive parents.
The board adopted the part of the state’s law that requires staff to talk with students about telling their parents and, if needed, to help with the conversation. If parents do not agree or the student doesn’t want to tell them, the student cannot make a change, according to the school district’s policy supplement.
The board also spent time debating the state’s prohibition on K-4 classroom instruction about gender identity, sexuality or sexual activity. It was approved after concerns about the effect on a Safe Touch elementary school sexual assault program were resolved.
Initial news stories, including in The News & Observer, mistakenly reported that K-4 ban was rejected, but district spokesman Andy Jenks said Tuesday it was moved to another district policy section and approved.
In October, the House committee asked Griffin and Trice to come to Raleigh to testify about both decisions.
It was the second time that North Carolina lawmakers called out the district for its actions. In 2024, former state Senate Majority Whip Jim Perry, a Republican from Kinston, said the district might face repercussions, but no action was taken.
Online claims of bragging, ‘indoctrination’
Wednesday’s hearing was prompted by an online, social-media video showed Griffin answering a question about the board’s 2024 decision at a September candidates forum in Chapel Hill.
The decision “was risky,” Griffin said in the video. “But we’re trying to make a statement, as well as protect our kids and our families. For us to sit there and try to wordsmith a policy that somehow legitimizes discrimination just seems ludicrous to us.”
The post accused Griffin of “bragging” about the district’s refusal to comply with the law, and Jones, a Republican from Tabor City, shared the post online. Jones continued to ramp up social media attacks on Griffin and the district since filing for re-election Dec. 1, including in a Friday appearance on the conservative TV channel Newsmax.
On Wednesday, Jones and several other committee members went back and forth with Griffin and Trice about whether the district is going to follow state law to the letter in the future.
House Rep. Mike Schietzelt, a Wake County Republican, reminded the men that their “duty under law is to follow the law.”
“It is offensive for someone to come before this body and say we are complying with the law when there are videos, there are documents, there is a mountain of evidence that you are not, and you are making no effort to try,” Schietzelt said.
Democrats call hearing a ‘distraction’
Democratic members were more conciliatory. House Democratic Whip Amos Quick called the hearing “pretty good TV.”
“I don’t apologize for anybody else, but I had secondhand embarrassment for the way this meeting was being conducted,” Quick said, before pointing out that the board overruled Griffin’s personal comments by voting unanimously to implement the policy.
His colleagues, Democratic Reps. Maria Cervania from Wake County and Eric Ager from Buncombe County called the hearing a “manufactured crisis” that relies on “culture war issues to try and distract from its shocking dereliction of its constitutional duty.”
The House majority “wants to yell at the second highest performing school district in the state for protecting its students, teaching the truth, and not openly groveling to the all-powerful legislature,” they said in a news release.
As Jones spoke with reporters after the hearing, Orange County activist Heather Redding popped up behind him and others, shouting, “Support Trans Rights!” and “Let children read books!”
Redding said later she was there to counter “a witchhunt that is in violation of our Constitution.”
“The legislative committee is trying to impose Christian nationalism on our students that does incredible harm. They are creating moral panic over books and curricula that merely serve to reflect real life families and they are in fact depriving families and students,” she said.
Another two dozen people representing the conservative NC Values Coalition, including some from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district, also attended the hearing. They were there to advocate for traditional values and parental control over what students are exposed to in school, members of the group said.
NC Values Coalition Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald said in a statement that the NC Supreme Court has ruled “parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their own children.” She urged lawmakers to draft strong penalties for violations.
“In defiance of the legislative and the judicial branches of our state government, the CHCCS Board took it upon themselves to be the arbiter of sexual morality for all families in their district by allowing parents to be left in the dark and young children to be exposed to sexual content illegally,” Fitzgerald said.
Threats despite name change rules
Former Superintendent Nyah Hamlett oversaw the creation of a staff guide in 2024 for dealing with student name or pronoun requests, whether for a gender change or a nickname.
The guide requires staff to tell students that parents must be notified, act only with the student’s consent, and let parents who agree know how to apply for the changes, the document shows. District teams review cases where a parent disagrees or a student is at risk of abuse, neglect or harm if their parents are notified.
Jones said Wednesday that leaving out any part of the law is not compliance. At one point, he said the district’s mission appears to be making “some woke kids.”
“The mission of our school system is to educate kids at a high level and create an environment where they feel affirmed and loved,” Trice responded.
Last week, Jones told Newsmax that if Chapel Hill-Carrboro doesn’t comply “like the other school systems have done, I can guarantee in the next session, there will be actions against this school district that we will help them get into compliance.”
He has not elaborated on potential repercussions, and state law only has a complaint process for parents when the law is violated. The district has not received any complaints, Jenks said.
Rep. Jeffrey McNeely, a Republican from Iredell County, advised district leaders at Wednesday’s hearing to “go home and do some serious housecleaning,” or there is “a good chance” state funds might not be available.
“Because of y’all, there’s going to be legislation that comes, and it’s going to be pretty tough, because we’re not going to put up with rogue school systems who have no money and will not comply with the laws of the state,” McNeely said.
Records show the CHCCS district got $84.9 million of its $191.3 million budget from the state last year. This year’s state budget remains stalled.
House Rep. Allen Buansi, a Democrat from Chapel Hill, attended Wednesday’s hearing and called it “a circus” that distracts from passing a state budget that fully funds public schools. Any budget cuts that target only one school district could run counter to state law, which requires equitable funding for students, he said.
“It’s really disturbing, these insinuations about cutting public school funding,” Buansi said, because the state constitution requires lawmakers “with our taxes to support public schools.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2025 at 8:17 AM.
