After midnight on the last day of Ohio’s two-year legislative session, the Ohio House voted to approve HB 8, the Parents’ Bill of Rights.
HB 8 will force teachers and school staff to out LGBTQ+ youth to their parents and will limit the mention of LGBTQ+ identity in school curricula.
“We’re again saving the very worst piece of legislation for the middle of the night where everyone has tuned out,” said House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington).
The bill requires that teachers and school staff – including school social workers, counselors and psychologists – notify a student’s parent of “any change in the student’s services, including counseling services, or monitoring related to the student’s mental, emotional or physical health or well-being.”
The legislation specifically calls out trans identity as necessitating parental notification, and previous testimony has affirmed that disclosures of sexual orientation would also trigger parental contact.
The bill further bans any mention of “sexuality content” in grades K-3 and mandates that such content be “age-appropriate” for all other grades. Sexuality content is defined in the bill as “written instruction, presentation, image or description of sexual concepts or gender ideology.” Nowhere in the bill is “gender ideology” defined.
After being amended in the Ohio Senate, the bill now includes a mandate that all schools find a time during the school day when students are able to leave school for religious instruction.
This new language on release time for religious instruction (RTRI) was the focus of the House’s final approval. State Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord), Rep. Gayle Manning (R-North Ridgeville) and Rep. Andrea White (R-Kettering) broke away from their party to vote against the bill.
Still, the bill passed 57-31 and now heads to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature.
House debates RTRI
As the House had previously approved the Parents’ Bill of Rights in June 2023, here it needed only to concur with the changes made by the Senate. Thus the debate on the House floor was largely confined to the amended language on RTRI.
Rep. Sara Carruthers (R-Hamilton), an original co-sponsor of HB 8, said the bill is a “good bill” with the intent to have parents and teachers work together. She said that the mandate for RTRI did not force a particular religion on schools.
“If [students] would like to learn Hebrew or if they would like to learn any other religion, that is possible,” Carruthers said, ostensibly conflating a language for a religion.
Rep. Adam Bird (R-New Richmond) pushed back against the many teachers and school administrators who have testified that it is an incredible disruption to have students leave in the middle of the school day to receive this instruction.
“This does not burden teachers,” Bird said.
Other Republicans made statements that religion is a necessary part of public education.
“Religion is not antithetical to a good public education; it is complementary,” said Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), a Baptist pastor.
Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania Township) took a more bold stance and reminded opponents of that Republicans stand in the majority in the Ohio legislature and that there would be consequences if they tried to come up with alternative workarounds to letting students leave for religious instruction.
“I won’t use bad language, but FAFO,” Williams said, invoking a profanity-laced acronym. “If we need to step up again, we will. If we want to make it mandatory to have a specific policy, we will.”
Only Rep. Jodi Whitted (D-Madeira) highlighted how damaging the bill would be to school personnel and LGBTQ+ youth. A social work professor, Whitted outlined how HB 8 violates the professional standards of her profession, including those on privacy, confidentiality and basic commitment to clients.
“Outing children does not help children,” Whitted said. “It is dangerous. This bill will not help anybody.”
What’s next
The House vote completes a nearly two-year journey for the Parents’ Bill of Rights.
HB 8 was one of the first eight bills introduced by Republicans in 2023, establishing it as one of their top priorities for this two-year legislative term. The bill has been labeled by LGBTQ+ advocates as the “Unsafe Students Act,” a “Don’t Say Gay/Trans Bill” and an endangerment to all LGBTQ+ youth in Ohio public schools.
With a dozen hearings in House and Senate committees since its introduction nearly two years ago, opponents of the bill have submitted hundreds of pieces of testimony, outnumbering supporters of the bill by a margin of over 100 to 1.
Opponents have included the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), who have repeatedly testified that HB 8 violates their professional guidelines and all tenets of a healthy therapeutic process by violating students’ “right and desires to privacy.”
Republican lawmakers have not been swayed by these arguments about professional ethics or standards, opting instead to repeatedly cast teachers and school staff as bad actors who are withholding information from parents.
Gov. Mike DeWine previously indicated he would sign the bill into law, specifically endorsing the language on RTRI.
Following the vote, reactions have started to pour in from opponents of HB 8.
“HB 8 is another example of how cruel politicians are to children who are entitled to bodily autonomy and deserve understanding and acceptance,” said Lauren Blauvelt, executive director, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio.
“School policies should focus on education, not discrimination. This bill could burden our educators, while failing to prioritize what’s best for our children,” said Sen. Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood).
ACLU of Ohio, Equality Ohio, TransOhio and Equitas Health have all released statements urging Ohioans to contact Gov. DeWine.
“Overnight when most school-age children are asleep, the legislature rushed through another shameful attack on LGBTQ+ youth,” said Equality Ohio Executive Director Dwayne Steward. “With bipartisan opposition, and opposition from a broad coalition that includes teachers, social workers and LGBTQ+ advocates, Gov. DeWine should veto this bill and ask the legislature to start over next session by focusing on ensuring that every young Ohio student has access to a school that welcomes them as they are.”🔥
IGNITE ACTION
- To contact Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine by phone, Ohioans can dial 614-644-4357 and 614-466-3555.
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