The Riverside Unified School District Board of Education last week received an update on an opt-out policy that allows parents to pull their children from required lessons where fictional LGBTQ+ characters or themes are the main focus.
Daniel Sosa, the district’s assistant superintendent, said the district’s policy was created in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor where the court’s conservative majority sided with Maryland parents who wanted to be able to opt-out their children from reading fictional books that featured LGBTQ+ characters or themes due to their sincerely held religious beliefs.
“We’re giving options to parents to be able to be more involved, to be able to express their feelings and be able to have more say in what their child is hearing in the classroom,” board Vice President Noemi Hernandez Alexander said at the October 16 meeting. “I think that’s a good thing, because parents have been asking for that.”
The district’s form, which is available on the district’s website, gives Riverside Unified parents the ability to request that their children be excused from specific lessons, assignments or instructional topics due to a conflict with the family’s religious beliefs.
As part of the request, parents would be required to cite the specific materials or lessons they want their child to be excused from, explain the specific religious beliefs and practices that lesson would interfere with and describe how the lesson interferes with their child’s religious upbringing.
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“We are not making a value judgment on any family’s religious beliefs,” Sosa said at the meeting. “We’re simply making sure that families can articulate the specifics with the certain materials and how they interfere with their religious beliefs.”
Sosa said the policy does not require the district to remove books from the library, nor does it stop the school from requiring students to read nonfiction books with LGBTQ+ figures. It also does not allow parents to submit opt-out forms with broad requests to pull their child from all lessons featuring LGBTQ+ topics as it would violate the FAIR Education Act, a state law that requires schools to teach a diverse range of historical figures and events.
Trustee Amanda Vickers questioned how the district could equally enforce the Supreme Court decision and California law, since federal law takes precedence over state law.
Christopher Fernandes, a lawyer working with the district on the form, said the state law was still applicable until a court deemed the state law violated the Constitution.
“It kind of seems like we are getting ready to go for a conflict in a way,” Vickers said.
Sosa said the district planned to include information about the opt-out form in the student-parent handbook which is provided to families every year. The district is also set to work to educate principals on implementing the new policy.
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