Divides over gender identity flare as WA debates parent access in schools

Just before the pandemic, Kristen Bridgan-Brown said her third-grade son was being pulled out of class for school counseling sessions – and she didn't know about it until a parent teacher conference.

"It had been going on for six weeks without them telling me or talking to me. My head was spinning," she said.

She felt betrayed, and pulled her son out of school entirely.

Fast forward to last year, when lawmakers enacted a conservative-backed parents' rights initiative. It outlines more than a dozen rights for parents to access their kids' school records, including school-based mental health files.

Bridgan-Brown said the initiative empowers parents to navigate situations like what she experienced with her son.

"This is pretty simple. It's pretty clear. It's exactly what we wanted," she said.

Bridgan-Brown said she requested her son's records after she pulled him out of school, and again after the initiative became law. She still hasn't gotten what she's asked for.

Now, Bridgan-Brown worries proposed changes to the law this year will unravel any progress toward more transparency.

That's because state lawmakers are considering bills to revise the parents' rights law. They have until the end of next month to finalize proposed changes, some of which would eliminate rights for parents to access their kids' school-based medical records. People who support the changes – including Democrats, who control the state Legislature – say that aspect of the parents' rights measure clashes with long-established student privacy rules around mental health and medical services.

Parents from across the political spectrum who spoke to KUOW for this story said they share a desire for more communication from schools. But the conversation this year has also stirred up fierce debate over gender identity and policies designed to protect students.

"It seems to have been very specifically hijacking well intentioned parents who want to be involved in their kids' education, and using that as a vehicle for anti-LGBTQ legislation," said Carrie Suchy, a school psychologist.

Suchy is among those who want the state to change the parents' rights law. She said some school psychologists have stopped taking notes, over fears that the new law will force them to share those notes with a parent against a student's will.

Suchy also believes the initiative didn't fundamentally alter parents' rights to access what their kids are being taught in school.

Instead, Suchy said the initiative's legal language has complicated efforts to support vulnerable students, like trans kids, who are more likely to experience bullying, homelessness or die from suicide compared to their peers.

"Not every kid can go home and tell their parents anything and be safe that night," she said.

Suchy said privacy rules are critical for other kids too – like those who just want to talk to a counselor about an issue before they're ready to talk to their parents.

"We had a student go to their middle school counselor and say, 'I was attacked and I need to make a police report,'" Suchy said. "And if that isn't a safe space where we can have those uncomfortable and vulnerable conversations, then the worry is that those reports will go away, not the behaviors."

And the current political climate has complicated the debate.

After the proposals to revise the parents law started getting more attention earlier this legislative session, an interview with Senate Majority Leader Jaime Pedersen (D-Seattle) sparked backlash after going viral on social media.

Pedersen was explaining a part of state law that allows teenagers 13 years and older to access mental health care without a parents' knowledge or consent. This policy has been in place in Washington since the 1980s.

Similar policies are common in other states across the country, mainly to make sure teens seek help instead of trying to manage issues alone if they're afraid of how their parents might react, according to Dr. Doug Diekama, a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital and an expert in bioethics.

"They don't exist because somebody thought a 14-year-old was mature enough to make this decision," he said. "They exist because if we don't allow a 14-year-old or 15-year-old to make these decisions, then we have a problem."

But policies allowing teens to access mental health care on their own have helped fuel political fights across the country – especially debates over how schools should handle trans students's rights. That's even though federal data says only about 3 percent of high schoolers in the U.S. identify as trans, with another 2.2% of high schoolers questioning their gender identity.

Cultural and social debates have played out in schools for decades, and gender is the new dividing line, according to Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian.

"Right now there's actually more disagreement among the citizenry about what gender is, than say, questions of race," Zimmerman said.

But parents have always held a unique power to make changes in public education, largely because the system is rooted in local control, said Zimmerman.

"If you disagree with what they're trying to do to schools, what you should do is raise your own voice and try to influence schools in the direction that you favor," he said. "I think that's the American way."

And for parent Bridgan-Brown, the direction she favors is one where parents and schools work more collaboratively to support their kids, regardless of what the law looks like.

"I know a lot of teachers," she said. "They don't all always have their shit together, you know, and neither do parents – and we have to give each other grace and work together."