Calif. Citizens Address School Board, Win Parental Rights Policy Reversal
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
January 18, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Christian attorney says parental rights have been upheld in one California school district.Recently in Placerville, California, the El Dorado County Board of Education voted unanimously to tentatively approve further restrictions on parental notification in cases where students needed to be released from campus for confidential medical services. However, many parents opposed the measure.
Kevin Snider, an attorney for the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), says it is no secret that "confidential medical services" is really just another term for abortion. He says several parents showed up for the school board meeting and urged board members to reverse the measure.
"There were 25 people who spoke for preserving parental rights," Snider says, "and only one anti-family person spoke in opposition." Also, he adds, "There were some elected officials who came and spoke." The pro-family speakers urged the board to uphold the family-friendly student medical release policy already in effect.
Such attempts to limit parents' rights have been on the rise all over, the attorney notes, along with efforts to increase minors' access to abortion, birth control, related counseling, and other so-called confidential medical services. "This is something that is appearing all over the place," he says.
Among the things people have to watch out for, Snider notes, is that this withdrawal of parental authority over their children's healthcare decisions and well-being "is not done in the shadows" and allowed to go unchecked. "If it's done in the light of day," he says, "parents will turn up, turn out, and support their own rights."
Snider also addressed the trustees of the Board of Education and told them they would be on solid legal ground if they sided with the parents. He also pledged that PJI would defend, at no charge, the El Dorado County Office of Education, if it were brought to court on the issue of its pro-parental rights policy.
Ultimately, however, Snider credits the strong showing by concerned, vocal parents and community leaders with nudging the El Dorado County Board of Education in a pro-family direction. Although board members had originally wanted to approve the measure, in a stunning reversal they voted to uphold parental rights by a three-to-one margin instead.
PJI president Brad Dacus says the school board's decision is "the second significant victory in as many weeks in the battle to protect the rights of parents to parent." He points out that, only last week, the board of the Roseville Joint Union High School District also decided to reject the California attorney general's controversial position on student medical releases and uphold its own family-friendly parental notification policy.
