So State Senator from Texas Konni Burton has introduced a law for the next session that would “require public schools give parents ‘any general knowledge regarding the parent's child possessed by an employee of the district’ and records ‘relating to the child’s general physical, psychological or emotional well-being.’” This bill was filed in reaction to a policy put in place in a local school district regarding transgender students. Basically, that school district did not want school officials telling parents that their child was transgendered. Konni wants to swing that pendulum all the way back and force us school employees to give up what we know about our students (or, more dangerously, what we think we know).
I cannot believe I live at a time where elected officials cannot fathom simple consequences. I mean just simple logic can take you down a path where this law leads to disaster for school employees, parents and students. I have a son in school who has confided in me his sexual orientation. Can you imagine if a school employee had taken upon herself to come and tell me that before I knew? Let’s say it had been a school teacher with a firm connection with her church which teaches her that a certain sexual orientation is a sin. Then she hears in a side student conversation that my son is gay. Then, Konni’s law, threatens her that if she doesn’t tell me, she’ll be, I don’t know, locked up (Republicans seem to like that phrase). So she panics. She tells the counselor, her department, teachers from other departments, an administrator, another student who she thinks could talk some sense into my son. And maybe Konni’s law doesn’t explicitly say that she has to report it to me, but the school didn’t do such a good job training their employees and this teacher is under the misunderstanding that she has to… and she does. Then, what do I do as a parent at that point? What do parents who go to a church that teaches homosexuality is a sin do? What do the bigot students who hear about it through the grapevine do? What does a parent like me, who believes that being gay is fine, do? I would get extremely upset. I would make a scene at the school and probably central office that this teacher was way out of bounds. I would file a grievance probably. And how would my son react to all of this?
This whole country needs a dandelion break.