Placer school district’s gender notification policy is unfair labor practice, agency rules
Yet another state agency ruled against a Northern California school district’s policy that forces teachers and school staff to out transgender students to their parents.
The California Public Employment Relations Board ruled Monday that Rocklin Unified School District’s implementation of its forced outing policy constitutes unfair labor practice because it asks school staff members to violate external law. PERB has ordered the district to rescind its policy and to notify its employees of this change within 10 business days.
But Rocklin Unified is not backing down and seeks to protect its policy, which requires school staff to inform a student’s parents if they request to go by a name or set of pronouns that is not aligned with their biological sex. The district is planning to appeal the decision, according to spokesman Sundeep Dosanjh.
Parental notification policies in schools are an increasing point of controversy in the state and nationwide. People in favor of a parental notification policy assert that parents have the right to stay informed of their children’s lives at school while opponents say that this policy is dangerous to trans and nonbinary students whose families are not supportive of their identities.
The largely GOP-approved Rocklin Unified Board of Trustees voted to institute the policy in September and the Rocklin Teachers Professional Association filed the unfair practice charge with PERB shortly after.
The teachers union contended that the district was in violation of the Educational Employment Relations Act because union members were denied the opportunity to bargain over the effects of the policy before the board voted to approve it. PERB concurred, but also resolved that because the board policy violated state law, it constitutes a nonnegotiable subject of bargaining and therefore forcing the union to enact this policy was illegal.
The California Department of Education previously found that the policy violates state Education Code Sections 200 and 220, which ban discrimination on the basis of “disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic that is contained in the definition of hate crimes ... including immigration status” in any educational institution that receives state funding or accepts students on financial aid.
Rocklin Unified faces pushback from multiple angles
Rocklin teachers union president Travis Mougeotte said that while he expected the district’s decision to fight PERB’s ruling, he was disappointed to see it.
“My first reaction is no surprise, my professional reaction is just again to question why our board would decide to go down that path and continue to waste resources — time and money included — on something that has been decided in multiple courts on multiple levels,” he said. “Why continue the ridiculousness of it?”
The district is also facing a lawsuit from the state’s Education Departmentrequiring that Rocklin Unified revoke the policy and opted to enter into a agreement with conservative legal group Liberty Justice Center to represent them in the case pro-bono. The Liberty Justice Center champions right-wing causes and is currently representing Chino Valley Unified School District in a similar lawsuit surrounding a parental notification policy.
The school district is also likely to see new state legislation that explicitly prohibits school boards from instituting a parental notification policy. Following a heated confrontation between lawmakers, Assembly Bill 1955 passed the Assembly and will now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, who is likely to sign the bill.
So far, it does not appear that Rocklin Unified teachers have been enforcing the forced outing policy. The union’s official guidance to teachers since it went into effect has been to follow state law over board policy, but this contradiction from district leaders has caused a lot of angst for teachers, Mougeotte said.
“There have been no specific incidents where people have felt in jeopardy or conflict with anything, but there have been a lot of questions and frustrations, like ‘how could we have any policy that asks us to violate state law?’” he said.
Jenavieve Hatch contributed to this story.
