A California school district board and the state labor relations board are embroiled in a legal battle over whether teachers must notify parents if their child begins transitioning to a new gender at school.
The case centers around the question of how much influence teachers unions can have over school policy decisions.
The Rocklin Unified School District amended its administrative regulations in September 2023 to require parental notification in the case of a student attempting a social gender transition at school. But general counsel for California’s Public Employee Relations Board challenged the change, alleging the school district had illegally left the district’s teachers union out of the amendment process. They argue that by not notifying the Rocklin Teachers Professional Association ahead of time of the policy change, the district had “failed and refused to bargain in good faith” with the union.
So far, a PERB Administrative Law Judge ruled in favor of the union, and so did the Public Employee Relations Board itself when the school district appealed the decision. The district appealed the board’s decision to the California 3rd District Court of Appeals at the end of February and recently retained the Liberty Justice Center to defend its parental notification policy.
“If we allow this PERB decision to stand, it basically allows unions to challenge any policy that a school board votes in. It gives a union veto power over a board adopting policies, which is not how it’s supposed to be. The board is supposed to operate independently,” said Emily Rae, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center.
The PERB also argues that the policy itself is illegal and violates California law. California Gov. Gavin Newsome signed Assembly Bill 1955 into law in July, which prohibits schools from requiring teachers to disclose information about a student’s gender identity to parents.
As teachers can be required by law or school policies to notify parents if their child is injured at school or begins falling behind in a particular class, the center believes they should be required to notify parents if their child is trying to change their name or use a different locker room — and that a school district can do so without consulting a teachers union.
“Our view is that this policy does not impact teachers’ worker conditions; there are other policies that have been on the books for decades that teachers unions have never challenged,” Rae told The Center Square. “They never sued a school district over adopting [those policies]. They’re choosing this policy because they don’t like what the policy is.”
Though not directly challenging AB 1955 in this case, the center has been and is involved in other lawsuits defending parental notification in cases of attempted social transition. Rae said that the issue is a national one.
“There have been three federal circuit court of appeals decisions so far that have come out in favor of schools being able to transition kids in secret,” Rae said.
In two of the cases, the plaintiffs have asked the Supreme Court to take them up, and the Supreme Court has declined. The ninth circuit, which includes California, has not yet heard a case on the issue.
“There are still circuits that haven’t addressed it. There’s still possibility for a circuit split, in which case it would probably be more likely that the Supreme Court would try to jump in and resolve the circuit split,” Rae told The Center Square.
Whether this particular Rocklin case moves forward now depends on whether the appellate court decides to hear it, though Rae said the school district could appeal to the California Supreme Court if the appellate court declines.
The Center Square reached out to the Rocklin Teachers Professional Association for comment and did not hear back by the time of publication.
