Why a Parental Rights Resolution? Thoughtful reasons to read the Parental Rights Resolution at your party caucus.
Why do we need a Parental Rights Resolution in Minnesota?
1. Public and Private (federal and corporate) hands continue to diminish the role of the family, diminish parental authority in raising and guiding their children’s education, and replace and/or over-write good law with bad.
Just a few initiatives which remove parental authority in public, charter, private schools, and homeschools in Minnesota are:
- Full-Service Community School model where students receive education as well as full health and medical services, with or without parental knowledge or consent.
- Passive Consent, as encouraged by the MN Department of Education and the 2011 amendment of FERPA, which removes parental consent in many cases.
- The Minnesota World’s Best Workforce -mandated curriculum committee, no longer comprised of a small group of parents and teachers, but increased to nearly 30 members including business and community members, thereby diminishing a parent’s voice. MWBW supplants academic education with skills-based and emotional/social learning while considering our students, Human Capital.
- US Department of Education grants, like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) which supplants a general takeover of state and local district, removing parental voice as well as teacher, administrative and school board. The ESSA contains policies, comprising over a thousand pages, which very quickly become state law. Just a few initiatives of the ESSA are intrusive Home Visits, the newly-created Family Engagement Centers, as well as the takeover of private schools and appointment of an Ombudsman to regulate compliance and equity with public school and regulation of secular worldview (even in religious private schools).
- Lengthening the school day, week and year as proposed by the US DOE and currently being incrementally implemented in some districts here in Minnesota.
2. We have no parental rights statute in Minnesota.
Let’s look at the parental “responsibility” subdivision found in our statutes, which might be our best “parental right” available in statute. There is no other foundational parental right found in statute other than this “responsibility”.
“120A.22 COMPULSORY INSTRUCTION.
Subdivision 1. Parental responsibility.
The parent of a child is primarily responsible for assuring that the child acquires knowledge and skills that are essential for effective citizenship.”
The parent’s primary responsibility? Assure the state. According to the statute, the parent is not in authority over their own child, but plays a secondary role to state authority. This “responsibility” does not rest the authority of raising up their children and guiding their child’s education in the hands of the parents.
3. We have no parental rights statement in our Minnesota school board policy manuals, and therefore, no parental rights within the school district.
Every school board has a policy manual. In Minnesota, policy 515 generally covers student privacy and protections and includes a parent’s rights section. Read the 515 policy below for St. Michael/Albertville School District, where the district superintendent recently stated in a school board meeting that parents do not have rights over their children when said children are at school.
“V. STATEMENT OF RIGHTS
A. Rights of Parents and Eligible Student’s Parents and Eligible Students have the following rights under this policy:
1. the right to inspect and review the student’s education records;
2. the right to request the amendment of the student’s education records to ensure that they are not inaccurate, misleading or otherwise in violation of the student’s privacy or other rights;
3. the right to consent to disclosures of personally identifiable information contained in the student’s education records, except to the extent that such consent is not required for disclosure pursuant to this policy, state or federal law, or the regulations promulgated thereunder;
4. the right to refuse release of secondary students’ names, addresses, and home telephone numbers to military recruiting officers and post-secondary educational institutions;
5. the right to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education concerning alleged failures by the school district to comply with the federal law and the regulations promulgated thereunder;
6. the right to be informed about rights under the federal law; and
7. the right to obtain a copy of this policy at the location set forth in Section XXI. of this policy.”
Here again, this language affords parents no authority with the exception of reading some school district paperwork. The only rights afforded are those which place the school district in complete authority over the child and remove a parent’s right to guide their own child’s education.
Under the Common Core and especially federal grants, “the state” is now accountable to measure each child’s progress from prenatal on… cradle to grave. As the aforementioned initiatives take greater hold in Minnesota, parents will find that not only are their rights to guide and direct their child’s education being infringed, but also that most basic right to raise up their child as they best see fit.
Let’s work together to move Parental Rights forward in Minnesota!
READ THE RESOLUTION AT YOUR PARTY PRECINCT CAUCUS, TUESDAY, MARCH 1st!!!!
Republican Party Resolution Form and Whereas
REPUBLICAN PARTY OF MINNESOTA Resolution
Democrat-Farm-Labor Resolution Form and Whereas
Minnesota Advocates and Champions for Children 