Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark wants to declare Huntington Beach a “Parents’ Right to Know City,” a challenge to the recently signed California law that prohibits school districts from implementing forced gender identity outing policies.
Van Der Mark filed a proposal for the Tuesday, Aug. 6 City Council meeting that would create an ordinance specifying the city’s stance against the law and use the city attorney’s office to challenge it.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 1955, known as the SAFETY Act, in July making California the first state to prevent school districts from creating parental notification policies that mandate school staff tell parents if their child’s gender identity changes.
“They are robbing parents of our rights and responsibilities to protect our children the best we can,” Van Der Mark said.
Van Der Mark said her proposal would direct the city attorney’s office to look into any options where the city could assist parents who wish to sue the state over AB 1955.
“If parents want to take legal action against the state, if they are harmed by this law, we will want to explore every avenue possible to assist them and partner with them,” Van Der Mark said.
Van Der Mark called AB 1955 “egregious” and “an affront to parental rights” and mentioned in her memo request that the law pushed SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to say he would relocate the company’s headquarters from Hawthorne to Texas. The law, Van Der Mark said, is another case of Sacramento overreach.
Her memo acknowledged the city doesn’t have direct control over local schools.
Chino Valley Unified School District recently sued the state over the law after the district implemented a forced notification policy. Van Der Mark’s item says “the city has an interest in challenging the State on AB 1955 or joining a parent’s challenge to the State on AB 1955.”
“It does not prohibit (teachers) from telling, it prohibits districts from forcing them to tell,” Our Schools USA Chief Operating Officer Kristi Hirst said. “So it allows for teacher discretion on a case-by-case basis.”
Hirst, who has children in Chino Valley Unified School District and is a former teacher there, said the SAFETY Act still gives parents access to students’ official records.
The law also prevents school staff members from being retaliated against if a teacher chooses not to tell a parent of a child who has asked to go by a different gender identity not on their official records, Hirst said.
Executive Director of Pride at the Pier Kanan Durham, who spoke in favor of AB 1955 while it was under consideration in the legislature, called the mayor’s item a distraction.
“The city is suffering because of culture war nonsense,” Durham said. “The City Council is not doing the job they’ve been elected to do.”
“The LGBTQ community is not a punching bag or a distraction that can be used whenever political officials need a distraction,” Durham added.
The City Council meets at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at City Hall, 2000 Main St.
