On Monday of this week, I sat for an interview with John Roberts of FOX News to discuss Senate Bill 5181, which would undermine the Parents’ Rights Act that resulted from Initiative 2081 last year. (Click the photo above to watch my interview.)
I was invited to respond to a statement made by the Senate majority leader last week in which he said: “Kids over 13 years old have a complete right to make their own decisions about their mental-health care. Parents do not have a right to have notice. They do not have a right to consent about that.”
I believe parents have a right and a responsibility to be involved in their children’s lives. The law should encourage that, and when the Parent’s Rights Initiative was passed last year, I saw it as a step in the right direction. The initiative was about sharing educational and medical information in a school’s possession with parents. At issue is what parents have a right to know about when their child is at school and when they are given that information.
No matter what happens to a student, their parents have a right to know about it. The state does not belong in the middle of the parent-child relationship, and parents are the ones who should be seeking help for their children with mental or behavioral-health problems.
Democrats repeatedly claim that they are protecting kids whose parents might harm them or neglect them if they knew what was going on at school. This is rare, and we already have laws that address abuse and neglect. But Democrats continue to sponsor and pass legislation that divide parents from children, often when kids need the most support. This kind of legislation destroys trust in public education.
SB 5181 passed in the Senate without a single Republican vote. Democrats accepted three of our amendments. House Democrats have sponsored their own bills that undercut parents.
If SB 5181 gets a committee hearing in the House, you will have an opportunity to testify against it. In the meantime, you may share your thoughts and call on Democrats to “kill” the bill by contacting the following people.
Speaker of the House: laurie.jinkins@leg.wa.gov
Chair of the House Education Committee: sharontomiko.santos@leg.wa.gov