California court gives parental rights win to school district

A California court handed down a parental rights win in a ruling Tuesday, a constitutional rights advocacy group said. The Superior Court of California in San Bernardino County partly upheld the Chino Valley Unified School District’s policy to notify parents if their child wanted to be treated as another sex. The court said that parents of minor children have the right to know if their child requested different names, pronouns, or to use facilities associated with the opposite gender. The district’s policy will not apply to students over 18, the court said.

California can’t shut parents out of decisions involving the welfare of their children, said Erin Mersino, the vice president at Advocates for Faith & Freedom, which represented the school district. Parents should not be left in the dark about this significant information involving their children.

What led to the case? California Attorney General Rob Bonta challenged the district’s parental notification policy in 2023. The policy violated guidance from California’s Department of Education and discriminated against students’ gender identities, he said. Bonta described the policy as “destructive, discriminatory and…downright dangerous” for transgender students. A year later, the superior court barred the district from enforcing the policy’s provisions to notify parents if students wanted to be treated as another sex.

But the school district asked the court to dissolve its ruling in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta this March. There, the high court reaffirmed that parents were the primary authority over their children's upbringing and education. The California court partly upheld Chino’s request, and the school district was now evaluating how best to implement the ruling, Advocates for Faith & Freedom said.

Dig deeper: Read my report for Roundups on a pending ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that could carry huge implications for parental rights.