Wisconsin Republicans promise ‘parental bill of rights’; school officials call legislation misguided | Local Education

One of the four K-12 education bills taken up by the Assembly Committee on Education, described by its backers as a “Parental Bill of Rights,” would bar school staff from addressing students by their chosen pronouns or names without parental consent and guarantee parents the right to review instructional materials, as well as have their child opt out of a lesson if they disagree with what is being taught.

“Too often parents are being sidelined by the school establishment, and that is why the fundamental rights of parents needs to be made clear and protected,” Chris Reader, executive vice president of the IRG Action Fund, an offshoot of the conservative Institute for Reforming Government, said in a statement Thursday.

The letter, organized by the IRG Action Fund and addressed to lawmakers, was signed by a group of 120 parents, mostly from the southeastern part of the state, in support of the legislation.

Thursday’s hearing came on the heels of Gov. Tony Evers’ veto of a bill that sought to prohibit teaching concepts related to “critical race theory” in K-12 schools, and amid a lawsuit by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of a group of anonymous parents against the Madison School District regarding who gets to decide which pronouns to use with a student — as pronouns are often changed to help facilitate a gender transition. The suit has been taken up by the state Supreme Court.

The Republican measure would allow a parent or guardian to sue a school district or school official if they don’t allow parents to:

• Determine the names and pronouns used for the child while at school.
• Review instructional materials and outlines used by the child’s school.
• Access any education-related information regarding the child.
• Receive advance notice of any polls or surveys conducted in the child’s classroom.
• Request notice of when certain subjects will be taught or discussed.
• Opt out of a class or instructional materials for reasons based on either religion or personal conviction.

State Superintendent Jill Underly lambasted the bills in a statement Thursday, calling them a distraction from current problems faced by public schools in Wisconsin amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our schools — and our kids — need so much right now,” she said. “They need real solutions to real problems. These bills are decidedly not that, and the fact that the authors of these bills seem to believe that their bills are, in fact, what our schools and students need is yet one more illustration of how out of touch they are with the reality on the ground.”

Peggy Wirtz-Olsen, president of the Wisconsin Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said the bills have the potential to cause lasting damage in the state’s public schools.

“Some lawmakers are exploiting the fragile stability we are building and fast-tracking devastating legislation,” she said. “Teachers and education support professionals in Wisconsin public schools are alarmed by the proposals that are circulating at a time when our lawmakers should be working with us.”

Another of the five bills would require some districts, including Madison and Milwaukee, to use federal pandemic relief funds to hire armed school resource officers to be stationed inside of schools. Wirtz-Olsen said that decision should be left up to local school boards.

“Lawmakers should be focused on supporting families in these districts instead of spending funds intended for learning, meals and safety on armed officers,” she said.

The other bills include legislation to rework state school report cards and an increase in the school property tax credit due to online instruction during the 2021-22 school year. Few schools have had to pivot to online-only learning during the current school year aside from those that did so temporarily due to staffing shortages during the omicron variant-fueled surge in COVID-19 cases.