Seal of the North Carolina General Assembly. Photo cred: ncleg.gov
On July 3, 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly ratified Senate Bill 49, the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” The ratified bill is “an act to enumerate the rights of parents to direct the upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their minor children.” The act was set to become effective August 15, with the exception of certain sections allowed to go into effect slightly later in the 2023-24 school year.
Watauga High School has chosen to enact all of the bill’s policies as soon as possible, and is now officially operating under the law laid out in the Parent’s Bill of Rights. While Watauga policy is already consistent with many of the bill’s regulations, SB-49’s enforcement does not come without alterations to the school’s previous guidelines.
The Parents’ Bill of Rights’ primary function is to legally ensure that parents and legal guardians have access to information about their children’s educational curriculum and physical and mental health. Among other regulations, parents are also guaranteed the right to be informed of any “any changes in the name or pronoun used for a student in school records or by school personnel,” public schools are prohibited from surveying students about “protected information” without parental consent, schools are restricted from providing children with medical treatment without parental consent, and students in grades Kindergarten through grade 4 are prohibited from receiving instruction regarding gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality.
According to Watauga County Schools Superintendent Dr. Leslie Alexander, most of the regulations provided in SB-49 were already being enforced in Watauga County Schools prior to the bill’s existence or ratification.
“What we discovered from reading the Parents’ Bill of Rights, is that most of what they’re asking us to do, we’re already doing,” said Alexander. “I’ll give you an example. Parents already had the right to review curriculum, but now, if they’d like to purchase a textbook, they can purchase a textbook.”
The law instructs schools to provide a method for parents to access the curriculum, textbooks, and supplementary materials their children will interact with. Its requirements that schools inform parents of their child’s behavioral patterns and mental wellbeing will also cause no change, Alexander believes.
Already, parents “have the right to know if their student is having conduct issues,” said Alexander. “We already reach out to parents and send home discipline letters if there is conduct that is problematic.”
Due to unclear wording and a lack of specificity in SB-49, several faculty members and students raised concerns about the bill’s requirement that schools obtain parental consent before surveying students about “protected information.” Watauga teachers often use a Google Form format to ask students about their interests or learning needs, while student journalists in the yearbook and journalism programs send surveys to their peers to aid in creating work for student publications. Alexander acknowledged the confusion even administrators are experiencing.
“We’re still getting guidance from our legal team about, ‘if a teacher or administrator gives a survey, is that different from if a kid gives a survey for the newspaper?’” Alexander said. However, if a school employee gave a survey about the restricted topics listened in the law, “we’d have to get parent consent before the student could do the survey, so it’s an ‘opt-in’ instead of an ‘opt-out.’”
A change that the Parents’ Bill of Rights will require from Watauga is laid out in a clause under the section “Notifications of student physical and mental health.” Met with concern and alarm from some students, the section requires the governing body of a school to notify a parent “prior to any changes in the name or pronoun used for a student in school records or by school personnel.” Alexander explained how the school system will address the task.
“In PowerSchool, you have your given name and a preferred name,” Alexander said. “At the beginning of the year, one of the things we’re going to do is make sure parents fill out that preferred name.”
Because of another instance of unclear wording, schools were forced to seek legal clarity on what qualifies as a name that is “different” from the name used in school records. According to Alexander, “common” alternative names don’t have to be approved by parents.
“If Elizabeth wants to be called ‘Liz,’ that’s no big deal. We don’t have to tell parents about that,” said Alexander. “But if a child wants to be called something different, we’re supposed to just let parents know that.”
The school system plans to emphasize the importance of filling out a student’s preferred name in PowerSchool to parents next year in an attempt to understand what parents are okay with their students being called. As a result, schools won’t be required to alert parents when a student communicates the name they’d prefer to be called, as long as it is pre-approved as seen in PowerSchool. This year, however, the school must act quickly to obtain consent from parents mid-year.
“We’re calling you guys what you told us your name is, so any changes—if, all of a sudden, you wanted to go by a different name—we’d have to let parents know,” Alexander said. “But moving forward, we’d try to take care of that at the beginning of the year.”
Because Watauga High School will inevitably be required to contact parents and inform them of name changes, or deviations from legal, ‘PowerSchool names,’ county and school administrators plan to assign the task to one trained individual.
“We’re going to come up with a system so that there’s one person at the school that’s in charge of that,” said Alexander. “We would choose someone that is very skilled at talking with the kid and talking with the parent.”
Although the school is required to contact parents regardless of the student’s preference or comfort, students would be involved in the process to make it as safe and healthy as possible.
“Whoever is responsible for that would talk to the student and say ‘we’re required to let your parents know, so I want you to be involved in that conversation,’” Alexander said.
Mr. Scott Strickler, Watauga High School principal, acknowledges that some students may experience discomfort at the idea of the school informing their parents of the name they choose to go by at school.
“We’d do that...with as much kindness and grace as possible,” said Strickler.
According to Dr. Alexander, “We’re here to support kids. We have to follow the law, but we want to do that in a way that’s supportive of students and families.”
Mr. Scott Strickler knows that changes due to SB-49’s ratification may be unnoticeable to some students, and inconvenient—or even a major source of worry—for others. His priority is ensuring that students have a support system, whether at home, school, or both.
“We’re here for kids,” Strickler said. “If they have a fear, I hope that everyone has a connection here.”
He hopes to work through concerns and changes alongside Watauga faculty and students.
“I know I’m the principal, but my job is to serve students here,” said Strickler. “I look at this as an extension of that, and hopefully, by serving students here, I’m also serving families.”
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