A California school district and labor board clash on gender policy

A California school district petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court last week to resolve a yearslong legal battle over the district’s policy of notifying parents about their child’s gender identity requests at school. Although a state labor board shut down the school district’s parental notification policy, the district argues that the labor board overstepped its authority by ruling on constitutional issues under the guise of enforcing labor law. The district says the unbalanced power dynamic could harm parents’ rights if the Supreme Court doesn’t hear the case.

Rocklin Unified School District instituted its parental notification policy because it believes “parents play a vital role in their children’s education,” a Rocklin spokesman told WORLD. “Trustees prioritize keeping families informed and engaged throughout each student’s educational journey. Strong collaboration between schools and families is essential to student success.”

The Sacramento-area school district adopted the policy in 2023, requiring schools to notify parents if their child asks to use a name or pronoun that doesn’t match his or her sex. Under the policy, school officials must also alert parents if their child requests access to different sex-segregated restrooms, programs, or changing facilities. The district added the policy as an amendment to administrative regulations.

But the local teachers union said the policy should have been bargained for as part of teachers’ terms of employment and not added as an amendment. Weeks after the board adopted the policy, the Rocklin Teachers Professional Association filed a complaint accusing the district of engaging in an unfair labor practice.

In 2024, an administrative law judge recommended that California’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) rule in favor of the union.

Rocklin then appealed to the full board. The district argued that the policy covered teachers’ basic duties, not employment terms, said Katie Cosgrove, an attorney for Liberty Justice Center, which represents the school district. Teachers have a duty to notify parents on any health updates about their kids, especially on issues like name or pronoun changes, she said.

“They’re not creating something new. They’re simply codifying a right that has existed for 100 years under the United States Constitution,” Cosgrove said.

PERB sided with the labor union in 2025 and ordered the district’s policy struck down. It added that Rocklin’s policy was illegal under a 2024 California law barring school districts from requiring staff to notify parents about changes in their child’s gender identity or expression.

Rocklin appealed to California’s Third District Court of Appeals and to the California Supreme Court, but both declined to take up the case.

Last week, the district asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue. In its petition, it alleges PERB operates with little judicial oversight and nearly always rules in favor of unions. Because of that, its ruling violated due process rights and parents’ rights to direct the upbringing of their children, Rocklin argued.

It noted that the board’s ruling spent nine pages analyzing why Rocklin’s policy was unlawful. The district contended that PERB didn’t have the authority to make that determination as the policy involved parents’ rights, not labor law.

“PERB has the authority to resolve labor disputes, not issues of constitutional law,” the petition argued. “PERB stages an end run around the rights of both parents and the elected officials charged with the responsibility of protecting those rights.”

The district’s spokesman told WORLD that PERB’s ruling takes away local control from the school board, hindering its ability to serve “its constituents, who prioritize parents’ rights in raising their children.”

PERB didn’t have the right to issue a ruling that had anything to do with parents’ right to direct the upbringing of their children, Cosgrove said.

“If the decision is left to stand, it would allow unions to be bringing issues to courts like PERB under the guise of labor disputes when they’re actually constitutionally implicated rights,” Cosgrove said. “The judicial courts declining to review them creates this really unbalanced power dynamics in the state, which, in this particular case, is really scary for the parents and the children of the state of California.”

WORLD reached out to PERB and the Rocklin Teachers Professional Association but did not receive a response prior to publication.

She added that Rocklin isn’t the only school district in California that’s had trouble with implementing a policy like this. Several school districts have fought against the 2024 California law, arguing it violates parents’ rights.

These cases are still working their way through the court system, but Rocklin’s case has gone the furthest, Cosgrove said.

The 2026 Supreme Court ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta could also help Rocklin’s case, Cosgrove said. In Mirabelli, two California teachers sued state and local education officials over an Escondido Union School District policy that restricted the teachers’ ability to discuss students’ so-called gender transitions.

In Mirabelli, the high court found that parents have a right to know about their children’s name or pronoun changes, said Paul Jonna, attorney at Thomas More Society, which represented the teachers. But the case didn’t directly challenge the California law, so the ruling did not strike it down. “Maybe [it] is still technically on the books, but it’s got no life left in it,” Jonna said.

Jonna said that if the California labor board’s decision against Rocklin is left to stand, “it would be an end-run around the U.S. Supreme Court’s pretty clear directives to the nation. … These policies are unconstitutional, and parents have federal constitutional rights under the First and 14th Amendment. They have to be respected.”