The fight over whether schools should tell parents when their own teachers and counselors convince students they are transgender is getting serious in one California district.
There, already, an arrest has been made of a woman who allegedly threatened violence against the board president.
And the state has launched an investigation – into the school.
It’s happening in Chino Valley, where the president of the school board recently was threatened after the board adopted a policy to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender.
The woman arrested, Berkeley resident Rebecca Morgan, 52, was cuffed on suspicion of threatening a public official.
The Chino Police Department learned of the first threat against the board in July “the day after the school board passed the policy in a lengthy and contentious meeting that saw state schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond leave the session after being told to sit down when his time at the podium was up.”
Multiple “threatening messages, emails and social media posts” erupted, and the police investigation continues.
School board President Sonja Shaw said the threats have identified not only her, but her children and her pets.
Then California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he’d grill the district over his perception of civil rights violations.
He claimed that the policy “threatens the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ students.”
But a report from the Washington Stand confirms Shaw, and the district, are not backing down.
“If LGBTQ activists thought their threats — legal or illegal — would make Christian school board president Sonja Shaw back down, they guessed wrong,” the report said.
Bonta publicly attacked the policy protecting parental rights, charging there are “potential legal violations” in the process to inform parents of what teachers and counselors have been talking to their children about.
Bonta’s ideology includes insisting that refusing to call a child by a newly adopted name or gender is “violence.”
Shaw says the brouhaha only makes her more resolved.
“This is a ploy to try to scare all the other boards across California from adopting the policy,” said Shaw in a prepared statement. “We have united all over California, and people from all over the nation are linking up to protect our kids and ensure parental rights.”
She said, “I won’t back down and will stand in the gap to protect our kids from big government bullies.”
Shaw, according to lawyers, is on firm ground.
“Bonta cites a general right to privacy under the state constitution, but fails to cite any case applying this right to gender identity, much less in the context of a child’s right to keeping information private from their parents,” explained Laura Powell, who has testified before the state legislature.
Lance Christensen, of the California Policy Center, warned, “Parents, do we have your attention yet? The state is coming for your kids. Using case law that he knows to be incorrectly applied, the AG is going after a duly elected school district that implemented a policy completely consistent with current state law.”
Shaw confirmed, “I still stand with my decisions.”
