Virginia’s largest school district, the Fairfax County Public Schools, is bucking Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new policies that give parents the right to, well, parent their kids.
Youngkin’s transgender policies, released in July, require schools to divvy up bathrooms and activities based on sex rather than gender identity — unless a child’s parents explicitly approve.
Fairfax’s officials want to stick to letting the children decide, and even order schools to keep parents in the dark if the minor so desires.
Fairfax Superintendent Michelle Reid argues that anti-discrimination laws require it.
It’s the mirror image of the battle in New Jersey, where the state wants Fairfax-style rules for all schools and some districts want Youngkin-style expectations. (Last Friday, a Jersey judge sided with Gov. Phil Murphy’s team, ordering districts to go with don’t-tell-the-parents while litigation over the issue proceeds.)
Our heart and head are with the parents’-rights side, across the board: If a school has good reason to think any particular parent can’t be trusted with such fundamental information, it should be doing a lot more than keeping that parent in the dark.
And leaving the decision in the hands of a juvenile (or younger kid) is beyond irresponsible.
Teachers and administrators who presume that parents can’t be trusted — or state officials who order that approach — aren’t avoiding any kind of illegal discrimination.
Rather, they’re biased against average Americans — worse, against ones who’ve taken on all the burdens of parenting and have every motive and duty to do right by their children.
Jersey’s Murphy, Fairfax’s Reid and their allies are the real bigots here.