ADF: Activist group duped Idaho school district into bypassing parents

MERIDIAN, Idaho — An Idaho school district unnecessarily rejected a proposed policy that students obtain parental permission before joining campus clubs after a homosexual advocacy group provided district officials with inaccurate legal information. The Alliance Defense Fund pointed out the erroneous information in a letter to the board of Joint School District #2 Monday and asks the district to reconsider the policy.

The situation is the latest in a string of incidents across the country involving activists who wish to expose children at government-run schools to sexual content without parental knowledge. Other situations have involved exposure via Internet access, sex education classes, and student theatrical productions.

“School districts do not need to give in to activist demands that parents be left ignorant about what their children are exposed to,” said ADF Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Lambda Legal has misled this school district into adopting a policy that hurts families, undermines parental authority and care, and denies children needed parental guidance.”

“Requiring parental permission before a student can join a club does not violate any constitutionally protected right of students,” Tedesco added. “It also serves the important interest of advancing and respecting the constitutionally protected rights of parents to direct their child’s education and upbringing.”

Lambda Legal and the Idaho Safe Schools Coalition sent a letter to the district on Aug. 10 that demanded rejection of the proposed policy so that students can join clubs like the Gay-Straight Alliance without parental permission. The district agreed to leave parents uninformed.

The ADF letter points out that the school district already requires parental permission for field trips, athletics, health classes where topics such as sex education are covered, specialized classes held off campus, dissemination of health records, and travel in rental vehicles for extracurricular activities.

“Requiring parental consent for participation in clubs serves the same purpose as it does in these other areas that the District currently requires parental consent,” the ADF letter states. “It allows parents to have knowledge of what their children are doing and to make informed decisions as to whether they believe it is in the child’s best interest.”

“Lambda Legal’s assertion that requiring parental consent violates students’ right to association is simply wrong,” the letter continues. “Parental consent does not prohibit students from talking with other students during non-instructional time or befriending any students with similar interest. It does not prevent a student from supporting the message of a particular organization or expressing his or her opinion on the same topics discussed by the club. Rather, it allows parents to decide whether they want their child to actively participate in a given club, just as parents are currently allowed to decide if their child can actively participate in athletics at District schools.”

Nampa attorney Bruce Skaug, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, also signed the ADF letter.