Senate Bill on LGBTQ school policies, parent communication passes out of education committee
A bill that would allow teachers to choose whether or not to use a student’s preferred pronouns, while also adding provisions about school communications with parents, passed out of the Senate Education Committee on Thursday.
Senate Bill 150, filed by Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, is focused on ensuring communication between schools and parents about health services, school curriculum around sexuality, and freedom of speech for school staff and students, Wise said Thursday.
But critics of the bill said it does not protect students who are members of the LGBTQ community, leaving them vulnerable.
Eleven members of the committee voted in favor of the bill, with Sen. Reginald Thomas, D-Lexington, as the only “no” vote.
“It provides parameters, it provides processes within which local school boards will promote parent engagement,” Wise said during the committee. “These are all topics and discussions that parents need to be aware always of in the upbringing of their children.”
The bill would prohibit the Kentucky Department of Education and the Kentucky Board of Education from recommending or requiring policies to keep students’ information confidential from their parents, he said. However, school personnel can withhold information if based on prior conduct, they believe the parent would abuse or neglect the child upon receiving information, the bill filed by Wise said.
Another provision of the bill would require a school district to provide parents with two weeks’ prior notice and an opportunity to review materials before human sexuality instruction begins. It would also require an alternate assignment be made available to those students whose parents disapprove instruction, Wise said. It does not prohibit discussions or conversations about sexuality, he said.
The bill also provides staff and students First Amendment protections by ensuring no school staff members are compelled or required to use pronouns that do not conform to a student’s biological sex, he said.
Mason Chernosky, of Lexington, opposed the bill in front of the committee, saying it would be “dangerous for young kids in Kentucky.” Chernosky said that as a student, school was the only place where he was publicly out as transgender.
“It was so nice to have one place where I could just be myself, and have people call me the right name and everything,” Chernosky said. “It was very nice. However, I was terrified that someone at my school was going to tell my parents, especially the teachers. If I went to seek support, if I went to seek the guidance counselor, or anything like that, I was worried that the teachers would tell my parents, and then everything would get so much worse for me.”
If students do not feel safe at school, they may be less likely to seek out mental health or other supports, harming them in the long run, Chernosky said.
Thomas, the sole opposing vote to the bill, called it “really harmful.” Schools should be a place where students feel safe, he said.
“This bill offers no safe space to a child,” Thomas said. “This bill is designed to do one thing, and that is to promote an agenda, an agenda that is not helpful ... or comforting to a child, but only to harm the child.”
Democrats push back
While several more Republicans announced themselves as co-sponsors on Wise’s bill from the Senate chambers Thursday afternoon, Democrats filed four floor amendments.
The first two, from Thomas, would allow a student to change teachers if a teacher’s actions “violated the student’s or the student’s parents’ sincerely-held principles,” and would not require a teacher to violate their own “sincerely-held principles.”
The other two, from Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, would allow a parent to require school personnel to call their child “by a specific name or pronoun” and would remove the requirement in Wise’s bill that a birth certificate be “original” and “unedited.” As Wise’s bill is currently written, the Kentucky Board of Education or Kentucky Department of Education could not have policies that recommend the use of pronouns that “do not conform to a student’s biological sex as indicated on the student’s original, unedited birth certificate.”
Berg has been a fierce opponent of the legislation since it was filed on Wednesday. Berg had a transgender son, Henry Berg-Brousseau, who died by suicide late last year.
“If I write a letter to the school, saying that my child wants to be called ‘X’ and the school just completely disregards my wishes as a parent, how is that fair? How is that equitable? How is that a just society,” Berg asked after the committee meeting. “... These are delicate children. These are children with their own special needs. And all we are asking is that first of all, you don’t just disavow their existence.”
Berg also accused Wise of using the bill to elevate his campaign for lieutenant governor. His running mate is Kelly Craft, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, one of several Republicans running for the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear this November.
“(The Craft-Wise ticket) needs to show that they are further right than the current Republican frontrunner. That’s what this whole thing... is about. And they’re putting our children smack dab in the middle of it on purpose without a care in the world,” Berg said.
When asked about Berg’s comments, Wise said, “Look at my voting record, bills that I’ve filed and championed in the past through the Kentucky legislature. I have a conservative voting record on education issues and I’ve always stood with conservative values.”
Beshear said he hadn’t heard Wise’s floor speech or read the bill, but was “struck by the callousness of introducing this type of bill with Sen. Karen Berg almost right next to you.”
Doing so showed a lack of empathy, he said.
”I have real concerns based on what I’ve heard about the bill, that it’ll increase bullying in our schools, especially for students that are already marginalized,” Beshear said.
Rebecca Blankenship, who became Kentucky’s first openly transgender individual elected to public office last November when she was elected to the board of Berea Independent School District, argued during the committee meeting that teachers currently have the ability to stand behind the state’s recommendation that they use “use a student’s preferred name and/or pronouns” when requested.
Under the new bill, she said teachers will be thrust into taking a stance on a hot-button issue.
“It doesn’t matter if the teacher decides to use the child’s preferred pronouns or not to use the child’s preferred pronouns, they’re immediately thrust into a controversy. Now, there’s the ability to stand behind the state’s dicta, but when they are put front and center with a responsibility and requirement to voice their own personal beliefs, that shield is gone,” she said.
‘Woke’ issues
House Bill 173, filed by Rep. Josh Calloway, takes aim at similar issues, including public schools’ course material, the use of pronouns, transgender students, the instruction of race, sexual orientation and gender identity, and a ban on drag shows in schools.
Earlier this week, during a meeting on the teacher shortage, some lawmakers on the House Education Committee criticized Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass for a perceived “woke” agenda. “Woke” is a term for actions and policies that call attention to prejudice and discrimination among marginalized communities.
Glass responded that the people who were making pronouns and “woke” issues a priority in education were not educators, but politicians.
Reporter Valarie Honeycutt Spears contributed reporting to this story.
This story was originally published February 9, 2023 at 1:28 PM.