California school board president on AG probe into policy requiring staff to inform parents about kid's gender identity: 'Laughable'
CVUSD Board president Sonja Shaw told Fox News Digital that the civil rights investigation against her school district is a 'ploy' to blackmail them and other districts.
A California judge has temporarily blocked a school district from enforcing a policy requiring schools to inform parents if their child changes their gender identification or pronouns.
The decision Wednesday by San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Thomas S. Garza came after California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office filed a lawsuit against the Chino Valley Unified School District over the notification measure.
"San Bernardino Superior Court’s decision to issue a temporary restraining order rightfully upholds the state rights of our LGBTQ+ student community and protects kids from harm by immediately halting the board’s forced outing policy," Bonta said Wednesday. "While this fight is far from over, today’s ruling takes a significant step towards ensuring the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of inclusivity."
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California Attorney General Rob Bonta fields questions during a press conference in Los Angeles. (AP)
Chino Valley Unified Board of Education President Sonja Shaw told Fox News Digital she was disappointed by the ruling but that "the battle has just begun."
"We can prevail as long as we stand united and strong against this agenda to marginalize parents and separate us further and further from our children," she said. "Politicians in Sacramento are not qualified to parent our children. The policy does not stop any lifestyle changes, it simply says the parents have a right to know what is going on at school and not be the last person informed."
"They picked the wrong parents to fight with," she added. "These are our children and we love them, and we care for them, and we are not a danger to them, and we will make sure that is known, and we will show our children that we will not be submissive to unlawful ways to shut us out."
A person holds a sign in opposition to a policy that the Chino Valley school board is meeting to vote on which would require school staff to "out" students to their parents if they ask to be identified by a gender that is not listed on their birth certificate. (David McNew/Getty Images/File)
Bonta's lawsuit accuses the district of violating the Protection Clause and Education and Government Code and constitutional right to privacy. He said the policy will out transgender students to their parents and threaten their well-being.
The district, which serves 27,000 students 35 miles east of Los Angeles, is one of several statewide that have implemented measures that require parents to be informed if their children are transgender.
Delbert Tran, a deputy attorney general for California, on Wednesday said students were already being affected by the policy and feared being themselves at school, and that risking the safety of one transgender student would be too many. "This policy needs to be addressed now," Tran told the court.
A parents rights supporter holds up a sign during Chino Valley Unified School District board meeting at Don Lugo High School in Chino. A California judge on Wednesday halted a school district policy requiring parents be notified if their children change their gender identification or pronouns at school. (Will Lester/MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin via Getty Images/File)
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Attorneys for Chino Valley Unified argued that the policy would not affect students who were holding private conversations with teachers, but would bring parents into the conversation in situations where students were making decisions on campus such as changing their name, pronouns or using bathrooms, or joining sports teams of a gender other than the one on their official paperwork.
Fox News' Joshua Q. Nelson as well as The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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