NOM BLOG

CA Schools Scrambling to Implement SB48, As Parents and Teachers Seek to Opt Out

 

The Los Angeles Times:

...teachers and administrators are flummoxed about how to carry out a new law requiring California public schools to teach all students — from kindergartners to 12th graders — about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans in history classes.

"At this point, I wouldn't even know where to begin," Principal Don Wilson said.

... The law has sparked confusion about what, exactly, is supposed to be taught. Will fourth-graders learn that some of the Gold Rush miners were gay and helped build San Francisco? Will students be taught about the "two-spirited people" tradition among some Native Americans, as one gay historian mused?

School districts will have little help in navigating this sensitive and controversial change, which has already prompted some parents to pull their children out of public schools.

... Calvary Chapel Corona — an evangelical Christian church of 1,200 congregants in western Riverside County — is an active opponent [of SB58]. At least seven families pulled their children from public schools in protest.

"This law teaches children that it's OK to be gay, and that's not my Christian values," said Bryan Breuer, who withdrew his children from public schools. "I don't understand trying to force this on my children."

Grace R. Callaway, a public school teacher near Yuba City, said she will refuse to teach LGBT issues to her fifth- and sixth-graders because she believes homosexuality is a "destructive lifestyle."

... How administrators plan to handle "conscientious objectors" like Callaway is unclear.

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