Anderson High may be at odds with the law concerning parental notification. Some members of the Anderson Union High School District Board of Trustees have stated that they will not comply with a law recently passed by the State Legislature and signed by the Governor that bars school districts from requiring that parents be notified of their child’s gender identification change. Last August the board approved a policy that requires parents to be notified if a student requests to be addressed by a name or pronoun other than what appears on their birth certificate. A new policy approved by the board in April removed the gender-related language, but the effect appears to be the same. It reflects a policy initiated in Chino Valley that prompted a threatened lawsuit from the Attorney General’s Office last year. At that time, the AG issued a statement about the Anderson decision, saying that such an action violates students’ civil rights by potentially exposing them to mental, emotional and physical abuse at home. A proposed voter initiative that would have required parental notification by schools failed to qualify for the November ballot when petitions came up about 100,000 signatures short. Chino Valley filed suit against the new state law a few days ago. A recent independent survey showed 13% of high school students in Shasta County identify as LGBTQ+.
-Steve Gibson