At its next meeting, the William S. Hart Union High School District governing board is poised to vote on a package of policies framed as “parental rights” and “unity.” Behind the pleasant language, these measures will burden teachers and administrators, invite costly legal battles, and strip away safe spaces for vulnerable students.
Viewed together — not piecemeal — the intent (appears to be) to leverage a recent Supreme Court ruling to marginalize certain voices and wound our education system. The vague and sweeping parent opt-out language requires schools to bend to every individual demand and litigate every dispute. Eventually, schools will feel pressure to retreat from fact-based science and history and from diverse literature just to survive the logistics and legal risk.
This puts the integrity of all of our children’s education in jeopardy. It is prudent to await formal guidance from the California School Boards Association, whose role is to recommend sound education policy. Racing ahead with reactionary local language creates unnecessary risk and potential harm.
Consider the flag policy. By striking language that currently exempts classrooms from the rule that allows only U.S. and California flags on campus and at district events, the proposal effectively targets symbols that signal inclusion and safety, especially for LGBTQ and immigrant students. LGBTQ students already experience higher rates of depression and suicide due to bullying, harassment and exclusion, and they rely on visible markers that tell them a classroom is safe. Removing them erodes that lifeline, and when at the last meeting, members compared these symbols of safety to a Dodgers or Angels banner, it trivialized the harm to our most vulnerable students.
Ultimately, these policies are both unnecessary and hazardous. First, current law and district policy already allow parents to opt-out and teachers routinely provide choices — as my own 10th-grader’s reading list did last week. Additionally, the proposed language is vague and legally untested, turning the Hart district into a costly test case potentially exacerbating existing financial challenges.
These policies would also force educators to build parallel curricula for countless individual requests, adding heavy administrative load while increasing the district’s legal and economic exposure. Finally, the Supreme Court decision pertained to elementary schools and is not even relevant in a middle and high school-only district like the Hart district.
And while allowing board members to add agenda items live during meetings may seem innocuous, it is poor governance at best. There is already a process to vet items for legality, feasibility and timing, and board members report no history of denials. Therefore, no problem is in need of solving. Rather, impromptu additions invite chaos, resurrect settled issues indefinitely, waste time and resources, and risk hijacking community input.
Perhaps worst of all, these proposals insult teachers — the trained professionals whose outcomes earn national recognition and make our schools a major reason families move here. We should be a district that trusts teachers.
The board should reject this package and, instead, protect student safety, respect educator expertise, safeguard fiscal stability, and proceed only after CSBA issues clear, prudent guidance.
Julee Brooks
Valencia
