First Focus on Children has urged the Texas Education Agency to revise implementation of state Senate Bill 12, which relates to the rights of parents and children in public education, so that it protects not only parents’ rights, but also the education, health, development, safety, privacy, well-being, and dignity of the students whose interests the rule is intended to protect.
“While we recognize the Texas Education Agency’s obligation to implement SB 12 and support parents’ rightful role in their children’s upbringing, we write to flag several provisions where the proposed rule, as drafted, creates serious risks to student safety, health, and well-being that we believe TEA has discretion to address without departing from the statute’s requirements,” First Focus on Children wrote in a letter today. “Our concerns center on one consistent theme: the rule treats parental notification and consent as values that must always prevail, and treats the student almost entirely as the object of parental decision-making rather than as a person with independent interests and fundamental rights of their own – in their education, health, development, safety, privacy, well-being, and dignity – that the rule must also protect.”