Implementing New LGBTQ+ Laws for the Current School Year
Amanda and Vickie cover some new laws that California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law at the end of the school year in May, and discuss some that California has started implementing this 2019 / 2020 school year.
Show Highlights:
- The LGBTQ+ law concerns incorporating the LGBTQ community into all the teachings that schools have. Part of that is the idea of gender identity.
- Amanda shares a story about the Oak Park Unified in Los Angeles County. They published their plan for the upcoming school year of the changes being implemented in grades K-5. At a school board meeting, they had to clear up a lot of misconceptions that the parents had about what they were actually doing.
- Oak Park’s plan to satisfy the law was to hold a class for enrolled students to learn about gender identity once per year, in a 30-40 minute class taught by a school counselor, using age-appropriate books and lesson plans.
- The gender diversity program is about teaching children in age-appropriate language expressions of gender, including male, female, non-binary, and transgender.
- An example of mislabeling was suggested as a crayon that is labeled as red, but is really blue.
- Parents do not have the ability to opt their child out of the class, because the course is not considered sex education.
- The state law requires districts to include this LGBTQ+ community into its teachings, so along with educating students on gender diversity, this program is designed to help curb suicide among students in the LGBTQ community.
- The state code already had prohibitions on matters reflecting adversity upon persons because of their race, sex, color, creed, handicap, and national ancestry, so this bill added sexual orientation to that list.
- Another section of the bill directs the governing boards of the school districts to adopt instructional material that accurately portrays the cultural and racial diversity of our society.
- Administrators should learn from Oak Park’s example of giving the parents an overview of the materials ahead of time.
- Senate Bill 419 makes changes to the California Education code, including public and charter schools. This bill prevents students in Grades 4-8 from being suspended for disrupting school activities or otherwise willfully defying the valid authority of those school personnel engaged in the performance of their duties.
- Kids with disabilities and kids of color are being suspended far more often than their white, neuro-typical peers.
- A recent study found that students lost over 150,000 days of school due to suspensions of this specific nature in the 2016 / 2017 school year.
- For IEP students who are engaged in “willful defiance”, the first questions that need to be asked is "Does he have a behavioral support plan?” and “How did we get here?”.
Links/Resources:
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