“Parents have the constitutional right to raise their children,” said Assemblyman Bill Essayli, a key architect of the parental notification movement.
The politicization of California’s public schools has reached new heights in recent years. From sexually explicit classroom materials to mandatory drag performances, education has become a battleground for debates over gender identity, administrative transparency, and parents’ ability to review curriculum. It was inevitable, given this context, that parental notification policies would become the cornerstone of the parental rights movement.
The push for these policies gained momentum in 2023 following Assemblyman Bill Essayli’s introduction of Assembly Bill 1314, which would have required school administrators to inform parents when their child expresses a change in gender identity or sexual orientation. And while the bill didn’t pass in the State Legislature, it laid the groundwork for school districts across the state to follow suit.
Over the past year and a half, around a dozen school districts in the state—primarily in Southern California—have passed some form of a parental notification policy. The list began with Orange Unified, Placenta-Yorba Linda Unified, Chino Valley Unified, Temecula Valley Unified, Murrieta Valley Unified, Rocklin Unified, Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District, and Anderson Union High School District.
Others have tried and failed to do the same. Success rate largely depends on the makeup of a district’s Board and the influence of special interest groups.
Opposition to the policies has been fiercest from LGBTQ+ advocacy groups and teachers’ unions who insist parental notification is akin to a “forced outing” policy. In Capistrano Unified School District, for example, an attempt to pass a similar policy drew strong pushback from the LGBTQ Center of Orange County and members of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). At the meeting where the policy was being voted on, opponents organized an effort to block the public from participating in the discussion by monopolizing the time for public comment.
“Parents have the constitutional right to raise their children,” said Essayli, according to The Orange County Register. “They are not spectators. I think that it is so disrespectful that you took a whole hour to listen to children than the parents who took the time off to be here tonight. They are the taxpayers, the voters, the people that you answer to. You spent time listening to children who are being used as political pawns from the left to emotionally manipulate and advance an ideology.”
Orange Unified School District’s notification policy was also cited by proponents of the recall effort against several board members earlier this year.
The parental rights movement hit its biggest roadblock yet in July 2024, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB-1955 into law. The new legislation, set to take effect in January 2025, will prohibit schools from requiring staff to disclose information related to a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents. It also protects school employees from retaliation if they refuse to notify parents about a student’s gender preference.
But it’s far from an open-and-shut-case.
In an act of open defiance, East County’s Cajon Valley Union School District responded to the news by passing its own notification policy just a month after the bill was signed.
“Think about how many students in a K-8 district this protects,” said Board President Jim Miller who, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, started drafting the resolution about nine months ago. “Why would we not protect them by having the parents who raised them be involved?”
To Attorney General Rob Bonta—who has been filing temporary restraining order against school districts to prevent them from enforcing their parental notification policies—the act reflects parents’ belief that this matter is far from settled. Many of them believe, as does Essayli, that the issue will eventually be settled in court.
Essayli is “committed to challenging the bill in court, and he’s confident he’s on the right side constitutionally,” said Shawn Lewis, Essayli’s chief of staff, and plans to work with a coalition of advocates to challenge the bill.
That coalition likely includes the Liberty Justice Center, whose lawyers are defending Chino Valley Unified School District in its lawsuit from the State of California. Just last month, the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, issued a ruling that one part of “the District’s parental notification policy—which requires staff to notify parents about changes to their minor child’s official or unofficial records—is constitutional and should not be enjoined.” As for the other parts, The Liberty Justice Center plans to appeal.
Elon Musk also took to Twitter/X when Newsom signed AB-1955 into law, calling it “the last straw” and announcing that “because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.”
“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” Musk wrote in another tweet.
While reception to parental notification policies seems to fall too often on party lines, the issue should have never been a partisan one. Parents are the primary decision-makers when it comes to a child’s education and well-being. Parental notification, supporters attest, is a simple matter of ensuring that schools are not keeping critical information from families. They exist, in theory, promote open communication and foster better relationships between schools and families—which virtually all school districts set as a general goal. Were it not for special interests, it could be something that both sides of the political spectrum could come together on.
But, with looming lawsuits and a climate of increasing polarization, that may not change any time soon.
