Sen. Mary Souza’s “parental rights” bill has passed the Senate on a 32-2 vote, with just Sens. Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise, and Dan Schmidt, D-Moscow, dissenting. The bill, SB 1293a, now moves to the House side.

“It is imperative that we try to involve parents at the public school level more and more,” Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, told the Senate. She said her bill does three things: It deals with “reasonable accommodations,” it allows parents to withdraw their children from any activity or program to which they object, and it requires schools to send annual notices to inform parents of their rights.

The bill requires schools to develop parent participation plans, a process through which parents can review all learning materials, and a process “by which parents who object to any learning material or activity on the basis that it harms the child or impairs the parents' firmly held beliefs, values or principles, may withdraw their child from the activity, class or program in which the material is used.”

It also includes this definition of “reasonable accommodation,” to which it declares that parents have a right: “’Reasonable accommodation’ means the school shall make its best effort to enable a parent or guardian to exercise their rights without substantial impact to staff and resources, including employee working conditions, safety and supervision on school premises for school activities and the efficient allocation of expenditures, while balancing the parental rights of parents and guardians, the educational needs of other students, the academic and behavioral impacts to a classroom, a teacher's workload and the assurance of the safe and efficient operations of the school.”