The “Parental Right”: bill, SB 5, has passed the House Education Committee on a vote of 16-4. It will now go to the full House.
The bill creates a complaint procedure for parents to ask their school's principal to review material they find "objectionable." The principal then would have 10 days to review the complaint. If the parents don't like the response of the principal, they will then be able to appeal the decision to the local school board, which will have to take up the matter and render a final decision in a public meeting.
If the parents still don’t like the decision, they can request that the materials or course be kept away from their child.
Supporters want to give parents more ability to control what their children have access to in order to protect children from objectionable materials. Detractors say that it’s simply a way to ban books from schools and eliminate programs like sexual education that can help children stay healthy and safe.
The Republican-led General Assembly believes this is such a crisis in the school that they have declared it an emergency. “Whereas it is imperative that materials, programs, and events that are harmful to minors not be made available to students within the schools of the Commonwealth, an emergency is declared to exist, and this Act takes effect upon its passage and approval by the Governor or upon its otherwise becoming a law,” the bill states.
It’s not clear if the governor will sign the bill, but the Republican supermajorities in both houses assure its passage into law.
Billy Mosley, Lead Reporter for The Kentucky Daily