(Editor’s Note: This is a part of a series of stories where Colorado Politics interviewed the candidates of the State Board of Education regarding public education funding, policies and other issues.)
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There is a familiar adage about raising children: “It takes a village.”
This means it takes everyone — parents, family, friends, teachers, administrators, the entire community — to raise a child.
However, several candidates running for a seat on the State Board of Education in 2024 agree that trust issues between parents and teachers have become problematic in recent years.
Notably, the debate between a parent’s right to know and a student’s individual preferences is taking center stage. Recently, Colorado lawmakers approved a new law requiring all public schools to use a child’s “preferred name,” subjecting schools that refuse to use a preferred name or pronoun to discrimination claims with the state’s Civil Rights Commission.
It’s one of several measures in this year’s legislative session that dove into gender identity.
Already, a Brighton couple has filed a lawsuit alleging that the 27J School District encouraged their daughter, A.D., to transition from a girl to a boy without their knowledge for over a year.
The Jefferson County School District also faces a legal challenge for allowing female and male students to sleep in the same beds during school trips without notifying parents.
When asked about the debate, the seven candidates running for a seat on the state’s top education board agreed that the laws are not always helpful and may give school districts the power to overreach.
District 8 GOP candidate Yazmin Navarro was blunt about the law and the efforts to put a wedge between students and parents. As a parent of an elementary school child, Navarro said the school is with her for mere hours a day, and a counselor is with her for minutes, which is not enough time for them to assess, plan, and help carry out a life-changing decision.
“I am very adamant, and it’s a very, very simple answer. I am the parent,” she said. “No one but me and my husband, as parents, know what’s best for my child. Period. There should be no secret keeping.”
District 8 Democrat Rhonda Solis said, to some degree, the issue is being taken too far. Dating back to her high school days, Solis said students often want a nickname or present something different at school than they might at home, describing it as a way of rebelling.
“It’s not necessarily such a big deal,” she said. “It is who kids are. I don’t necessarily think the pronoun thing is as different. It’s just that there is a lot of energy around the conversation, and that’s unfortunate.”
Solis said it is unfortunate that the conversation around pronouns and student identities has become uncomfortable. However, it could be part of “growing pains,” as more discussions and understanding are needed, Solis said. With time, education, and communication, Solis said she hopes the issue will become less controversial.
District 4 Democrat Krista Holtzmann, when asked about the parent’s right to know versus a student’s independence at school, said, “I guess where I stand is on the side of the kids.”
“We know that when parents and teachers are working together for the best interest of the kids, that is when they’re going to have the most learning,” she said. “There is a responsibility for teachers to partner with parents, and likewise, for parents to look at their teachers as a partner. I think that if that’s not happening, it’s not creating the best situation for the student.”
Looking through a student’s eyes, Holtzmann said she wants to foster their independence during those teenage developmental years, but not if school districts and parents become opposing forces.
“We have to work together because that’s the only way that the students are best served,” she said.
District 4 Republican Kristi Burton Brown she believes the state’s law regarding this issue is “100% wrong and it violates the constitution.” The District 4 candidate said she believes the law will “get struck” down in court.
“The education system needs to quit getting between parents and their children,” she said.
Brown said students are minors and it is their parent’s responsibility to take care of them.
In District 3, Democrat Ellen Angeles said parents and teachers have a duty to work together because they “have the same goals.”
“Teachers are not nefarious. They are not going out there trying to hurt your kids,” she said. “They love your kids as much as you.”
Angeles, who comes from a family of educators, expressed her concern about the pronoun controversy and lawmakers stepping in with a policy, stressing that it is creating more obstacles for teachers, school districts, and parents.
Angeles compared the current situation to a child playing divorced parents off each other.
“I don’t want kids playing me off their parents,” she said. “I don’t want parents playing me off their kids. In this, the only ones that win are the people who are being destructive, and we can’t have that.”
Angeles said the issue began creating a lot of “noise” as it became more political, adding it distracts from the topics that should be front and center, such as teacher pay, school funding, classroom size, and all the issues that affect the quality of education for Colorado students.
“Instead of going against teachers and public education, stop making noise,” she said. “Stop playing politics with our children’s lives. We might have a case-by-case basis, but overall, we must get back to what’s important.”
Sherri Wright, the Republican candidate in District 3, said the state legislature is overstepping and that school districts can look at the situation differently.
Wright stressed that if a school administrator or counselor feels something is not right with a student, it is not their place to take action and help a student deceive the parents. Instead, the school district must contact social services and allow an investigation if they are worried about abuse or harm, Wright said.
Wright said she believes in “parental rights.”
“Keep politics out of the schools and let us teach,” she said. “If there is some sort of abuse, call social services.”
Kathy Gebhart, a Democrat running unopposed in District 2, agreed that there are safeguards in place for school officials to file a report with the proper authorities if they think a child is in danger.
Gebhardt said after reading the lawsuit filed in Brighton, she came back to the same question on whether the school thought the child was in danger, and if so, whether it should have called the proper authorities.
Gebhardt said it is hard to measure that middle ground between a student being physically and emotionally harmed. Still, she questions how school districts can decide how it is handled without parental consent.
“I just don’t know if we have a good answer for that question right now,” she said. “In the best circumstances, you would want a partnership with the school and the parents.”
Gebhardt said that if the relationship between the parent and school is damaged, the student will be the one affected.
“It puts the child in the middle and that is a terrible place for a child to be,” she said.
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Publish date : 2024-09-22 00:00:00
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