Dozens of community members took to the podium during Wednesday night’s William S. Hart Union High School District’s governing board meeting to voice their concerns about a potential parent-notification policy.

More than forty speakers submitted public comments on the issue during the Hart District meeting, running the gamut from current and former students, current and former parents, and concerned community members.

The parental-notification policy was not on the agenda, and as such no action was taken on the issue.

“There have been many comments complaining that the consideration of a parent-notification policy was pulled from the November 1 board agenda. I want to set the record straight,” said President Bob Jensen. “On Thursday and Friday of last week, we began to hear and we continue to hear the calls had been made by various groups asking external people and in some cases people within 100 mile radius to come to our November 1 board meeting. This raised serious safety concerns.

Jensen went on to explain that additional security had been requested for the Nov. 1 meeting, however it had been unavailable. This is due to the fact that other districts have experienced fights or violent incidents during the discussion of other parental-notification policies.

In response to social media pleas for non-residents to attend the meeting as a potential show of support for or against any policies the Hart District may discuss, arrangements are under consideration for additional security and a larger location for the next meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 15.

Several school districts throughout the state have adopted transgender-specific parental-notification policies in the last year, with origins in Assembly Bill 1314, which would require school staff to inform parents in writing within three days of  discovering that a student identifies as a gender that does not match the one assigned to them at birth.

Currently, state law says that such information must be kept confidential unless students give school staff permission in order to protect students from potentially abusive situations in the home.

The possibility of discussing a parental-notification policy, including gender identity but also mental health concerns, bullying and drug abuse, had originally been floated for the Oct 18 board meeting by Joe Messina for Trustee Area No. 5.

“Some of you have accused the board of hiding things from the community or not being transparent enough over the years and yet, you want us to be silent about this,” Messina said. “This is a very important issue for everybody involved. Over 95 percent of suicides happen at home. If the parents knew that their kids were having issues, they could have kept a better eye on things.”

According to Messina, the intent of the notification is not to install “a forced outing policy,” but to establish “full transparency” between guardians and District staff for the benefit of students.

“To the statement that we don’t care, or we don’t listen, I think that’s an insult,” Messina said. “Some of us spend 80-plus hours a month taking calls, doing research. So we have a real clue up here as to what’s going on. We’re a representative governing body. We’re not a mob rule governing body. I voted in favor of items that personally oppose – that I don’t care for – because the community and the law dictated it.”

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