5A newly proposed bill in Florida would ban school teachers from teaching sexual orientation or gender identity to children in pre-K through the eighth grade and offer multiple protections from gender ideology.
The bill HB 1223, filed on Tuesday by Rep. Adam Anderson, expands the regulations to private pre-K providers, disallowing instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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The bill also builds further protections in public schools, declaring that no employee, contractor, or student of a public school can be required to use to refer to others by pronouns not corresponding with their sex. It also prevents employees and contractors from requesting students use misaligned pronouns or asking students for their pronouns.
“…prohibiting employees, 9 contractors, and students of such educational 10 institutions from being required to use, from 11 providing, and from being asked to provide certain 12 titles and pronouns; prohibiting students from being 13 penalized or subjected to certain treatment for not 14 providing certain titles and pronouns; authorizing the 15 State Board of Education to adopt rules…”
The bill expands regulations in the pre-existing Parental Rights in Education bill, which had been falsely dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, to higher grade levels.
The bill states that, if enacted, it will be “prohibiting classroom instruction on 17 sexual orientation or gender identity from occurring 18 in prekindergarten through grade 8, rather than 19 kindergarten through grade 3;…”
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in prekindergarten through grade 8. If such instruction is provided in grades 9 through 12, the instruction must be in a manner that is age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
The act also sets out guidelines for how sex should be defined in class as an “immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”
Moreover, the bill reinforces transparency. It beefs up a school’s obligations to keep parents informed on the status of their children and in control of their upbringing.
“The procedures must reinforce the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children by requiring school district personnel to encourage a student to discuss issues relating to his or her well-being with his or her parent or to facilitate discussion of the issue with the parent. The procedures may not prohibit parents from accessing any of their student’s education and health records created, maintained, or used by the school district,”
It also mandates that a school’s policies surrounding this issue be publicly displayed and available on its website. In tandem, the act explicitly bans schools from keeping information from parents.
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A spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Renner affirmed the speaker’s report for the fledgling bill, which bodes well for its future.
“Speaker Renner voted for the Parental Rights in Education bill and believes that our children should not be exposed to age-inappropriate materials. He will continue to champion the rights of parents, support policies that keep the focus on teaching our children the core educational skills, and push back against education activists who seek to sexualize and indoctrinate our children,”
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