What can an unhappy parent do?
Until recently a widely accepted cultural consensus about what should be taught in schools has existed. The three R's, reading, writing, arithmetic and history, geography, social studies, science and physical education - all of these subjects and a few more are highly regarded by the overwhelming majority of parents and taxpayers.
On the other hand, sex education has been controversial over the years and objecting parents have been satisfactorily accommodated by allowing their children to skip the sex education lessons.
The new gender studies lessons are also controversial but they are integrated into reading, writing and social studies lessons so that it is impossible for students to skip presentations that include sex change topics.
Our school boards have a problem meeting the preferences of parents who object to their children being taught from the sex change lesson plans that have been approved for use in K-12 classrooms.
Since there is no obvious way to accommodate parents in a regular school and because the cultural consensus around proper subjects has broken down, what can a parent do?
A parent can try to mitigate the damage. The parent can talk to their child's teacher about the sex change lesson plans that will be taught by him or her. If the teacher's professional approach to age appropriateness is not acceptable to the parent, the parent can discuss the matter with the principal. If not resolved at the school level, a complaint form can be completed and submitted to the Board for its consideration.
If the parent finds that the British Columbia school in their neighborhood does not accommodate her or his wishes for their child's education he or she will seek an alternative.
The local pressure from these province-wide conditions will only become more intense over time as the sex change lesson plans are rolled out into regular classrooms.
And luckily there is a local solution. The pressure from unhappy parents can be relieved by allowing the formation of 20 independent public charter schools. Alberta has developed this solution for 26 years.
The charter school principal would hire teachers with an age appropriate approach to the gender studies curriculum and could easily fire teachers who are overly zealous in its implementation.
The current extent of parental unhappiness has been measured by votes cast in the 2018 trustee election for trustees who appeared to be standing against the use of the sex change lesson plans.
