The state of Virginia has passed a law that requires school boards to inform parents when books with sexually explicit content are used in the classroom.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has signed into law Senate Bill 656 last week, a new law that orders the state's Department of Education to establish "model policies" for school boards by July 31 and adopt them by January 1, 2023. These policies will require school boards to notify parents when books with sexually explicit material are used in the classroom.
"The Department shall develop and make available to each school board model policies for ensuring parental notification of any instructional material that includes sexually explicit content," SB 656 states, as reported by the Christian Post.
Aside from parental notification, SB 656 also requires "identifying the specific instructional material and sexually explicit subjects" and allowing parents of students to "review instructional material that includes sexually explicit content and provide, as an alternative, nonexplicit instructional material and related academic activities to any student whose parent so requests."
Last week, Gov. Youngkin also passed House Bill 938, which orders the Virginia Board of Education "to convene a group of stakeholders" made up of school officials and parents to offer recommendations to the General Assembly over issues such as improving academic standards and increasing transparency for proficiency standards.
On Friday, the Republican governor of Virginia released a statement justifying that SB 656 and HB 938 "both deliver on my Day One promises to give parents a greater say in their children's education."
Gov. Youngkin said he was "pleased" to sign the two bills into law, as well as "many other bipartisan bills that will enhance education, improve public safety, provide tax relief, and make government work better for the people of Virginia."
Gov. Youngkin's move comes just weeks after Florida's "Parental Rights in Education" bill was signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. House Bill 1557, which the left-wing media labeled as "Don't Say Gay" bill despite the text of the bill not mentioning the word "gay," prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms of kindergartners up to third graders or in older grades in "a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate," CBS News reported.
"Parents have every right to be informed about services offered to their child at school, and should be protected from schools using classroom instruction to sexualize their kids as young as 5 years old," Gov. DeSantis said in a statement on his website.
Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools, which is one of the largest school districts in America, was caught up in controversy last year because it had sexually graphic books in their high school libraries. Such books included "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe and "Lawn Boy" by Jonathan Evison, which both graphically depict sexual acts between men and boys.
Following a highly publicized school board meeting, the school district's board decided that the circulation of such books have been "suspended" as a committee reviews it and makes recommendations over its content.
