“It's my strong sense that many Washingtonians aren't aware of some of the facts around this initiative,” Ferguson said at a press conference Thursday morning.
He joined other Democrats and pro-LGBTQ campaigners to speak out against Ballot Initiative 001, which asks voters to roll back changes the state legislature made to the law last year. Those changes give schools more time to turn over materials like classroom curricula and other records to parents who request them, and keeps student’s medical and mental health records private.
Campaigners who want to keep those changes say they’re meant to protect LGBTQ youth from abuse. Supporters of the initiative say it will strengthen communications between schools and parents.
“Teachers, counselors, school leaders all know that partnering with parents is crucial, and the rhetoric from this initiative is politically charged,” said state Rep. Monica Stonier (D-Vancouver), who was one of the lead sponsors of the changes made to the “parents bill of rights” last year. “Let’s Go Washington’s focus on demonizing schools hasn’t changed, but this time it’s resulted in a law that is so badly written that it takes away some of those parental rights.”
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The Seattle Times editorial board recently noted that Heywood’s new initiative lifts language directly from an existing law in Louisiana and called out a section on reporting abuse in schools. Washington's current law requires that parents be notified of abuse at school as soon as a report is filed, but the initiative proposes vague wording that recommends notifying a parent as soon as criminal action is “deemed to have been committed.”
“I'm speaking partly as a governor, of course, but also as a father of two teenagers who cares deeply about protecting parents' rights,” Ferguson said. “Initiative 001 — no matter how hard the other side tries to spin it — it actually weakens existing laws by removing parents' rights.”
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