When they meet next week, September 17, the school board members at Elk Grove Unified School District are expected to adopt a policy requiring parental consent before a child can participate in homosexual-themed clubs in elementary schools.
The demand for Elk Grove to adopt that policy came after parents learned the sponsoring teacher, Daniel Bishop, told the young students the new club for 8-year-olds and 9-year-olds was a safe space for “boys who crush on boys” and for “girls who crush on girls.”
The parents were helped by two groups, California Family Council and the National Center for Law and Policy.
"It was our privilege,” says Greg Burt, of California Family Council, “to help these parents stand up for themselves.”
Dean Broyles, who leads the National Center, warned Elk Grove in a letter that basic parental rights are protected and guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, in particular the Due Process Clause.
The letter states it “should not be controversial that mothers and fathers, not the state, are in a much better position to authentically love, know, understand and make better informed decisions on behalf of children in their custody, care and control.”
It not not clear how Elk Grove's parental notification policy will survive in Democrat-led California, where the governor, attorney general, and legislature have crushed the parental-rights movement that took off in recent years. Assembly Bill 1955, which keeps student information private from their parents, is set to become state law January 1, 2025.
That law was passed to stop public school boards, led by Chino Valley, that had defended parental rights with parental notification policy.
Parents organized, protested 'UBU Club'
The vote next week to adopt the policy comes after the school board proposed the policy in a Sept. 5 meeting, but the issue itself dates back to late 2023. That is when Bishop, a third-grade teacher at Pleasant Grove Elementary, formed a UBU Club, or “You Be You” Club, and invited the young children to meet at lunchtime.
It took weeks for news of the club and its LGBT-friendly theme to reach parents, who began to organize with an Instagram group called Informed Parents EGUSD. In March, parents protested in front of Pleasant Grove Elementary and organized a one-day walkout in which they said 150 students stayed home.
A related story by The Sacramento Bee, published four months ago, described the controversy. The story was sympathetic toward the teacher, who was named in the story, but it also acknowledged Bishop was leading a “Rainbow Club” that is the elementary school version of the LGBT-themed GSA clubs that recruit high school students.
The story also did not dispute Bishop had described the club as a safe place for “boys who crush on boys” and for “girls who crush on girls.”
The Bee story also portrayed protesting parents as mean and dangerous bigots, who even made death threats to the teacher and the school principal.
In his interview with AFN, Burt’s description of the protesting parents was much different.
“We’re really proud how they got up publicly and spoke before school boards,” he tells AFN, “when many of them had never done that before."
