Pro-Family Activists Commend Communities' Stand for Parental Rights
by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
January 12, 2005
(AgapePress) - Pro-family activists have thwarted an attack on parental notification in a California school district. The liberal majority on the Roseville School Board was threatening to institute a new policy that would allow children to be excused from campus for abortion, suicide, or drug counseling, all without parental notification.The idea was dropped, however, after a large number of area parents expressed disapproval. Local residents turned out in droves for last week's Roseville School Board meeting, urging members to keep the existing policy requiring parental notification in place.
Randy Thomasson | |
Randy Thomasson, who heads the Sacramento-based Campaign for Children and Families (CCF), is crediting the citizens and local leaders of Placer County, where the school district is located, with securing the pro-family victory in this matter. "They were motivated by radio talk shows that were sympathetic to parental rights, e-mail alerts, word-of-mouth and a liberal newspaper story," he says, "and they turned out because they care about their parental rights and moral decision-making."Thomasson says the concerned community members who showed up for the meeting to speak out against the liberal medical release policy "were successful, and this is something we need to thank God for, and thank the people who came." He feels the Placer County residents are to be commended for taking initiative at an opportune time.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer recently issued an opinion in which he stated that school districts can bypass parental notification when a student is excused from school for certain medical services. However, Thomasson points out that current state law leaves room for some discretion in school districts' student health policies, and it is important that pro-family forces exploit this fact.
"A wise man once said that you're prepared in life for the opportunity when it arrives," the CCF spokesman says. "In California the law is ambiguous, and a school district can have a pro-family, pro-parent policy. So lobbying those school districts is the job of every voter -- every parent -- who cares about parental rights."
Parents and other concerned citizens need to make the most of such opportunities, Thomasson asserts, just as the Placer County parents did when they turned out to voice their opposition to the liberal school officials' proposed anti-parental notification policy, and their actions made a difference. "That's what we can learn from this," the California pro-family leader says.
And Right Next Door ...
Apparently that message came through loud and clear to parents in adjoining El Dorado County, where the local school board also decided -- after hearing from their constituents -- against changing their parent-friendly policy on parental notification.
According to the Capitol Resource Institute in Sacramento, the school board was prepared to announce its decision to change that policy and deny parental notification when children between the ages of 12 and 17 wished to leave campus for "confidential medical services. In fact, says CRI, the board had even prepared a press release to that effect. But then angry parents showed up at Monday's board meeting.
"Parents are outraged when they hear that school officials would like to 'parent' their children for them and leave them in the dark," says CRI's Karen England. "That is precisely why they showed up en masse [on Monday] at the school board meeting."
England says going into that meeting, "anti-family forces" believed they had persuaded the school board to adopt a policy that would have prohibited parents from being contacted if their children sought suicide counseling, drug therapy, or "family planning services" during the school day. But because of public pressure, she says, the board decided to keep the current policy.
"It was extremely presumptuous for the El Dorado County School Board to issue a press release before they had heard from their constituents on this issue," England notes. "This is a tremendous victory for families, the protection of our children, and parental rights."
CRI points out that a recent survey in the county showed that almost 90 percent of the residents want to be notified when their minor children leave campus during school hours.
