Overhaul of WA Parents’ Bill of Rights heads to Ferguson

Lawmakers in Olympia spent months this session engaged in fierce partisan debate over how to balance parental involvement and student privacy. 

House Democrats reached a significant milestone in the monthslong debate on Thursday by giving final approval of a bill that modifies a 2024 parental rights initiative and directs school districts to comply with state law. 

Democrats signaled early in the session their intent to modify Initiative 2081, a Republican-backed initiative to the Legislature commonly known as the Parents’ Bill of Rights. They said the initiative was causing widespread confusion among school districts and compromising student privacy. 

The move sparked uproar from Republicans who backed the original initiative sponsored by conservative millionaire Brian Heywood and his advocacy group, Let’s Go Washington. They said the list of 15 delineated parental rights passed last year granting parents access to school materials and student records was essential for restoring trust between parents and the public education system. 

The early weeks of debate over proposed changes in Senate Bill 5181 and House Bill 1296 coincided with the Trump administration’s moves to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies in schools and target transgender people. State law includes extensive protections for vulnerable students, including LGBTQ+ students, and at a time of federal uncertainty, Democrats landed on HB 1296 as the vehicle to ensure that school districts comply with state law in addition to amending the initiative’s language. 

The final version of HB 1296 removes rights related to notification of medical services and specifies that laws governing medical records are controlled by other parts of state law, not the initiative. Other rights, including the timeline for receiving records and for notification of certain events, are also modified. 

The bill now awaits a signature from Gov. Bob Ferguson. 

“I’m hoping that the governor will agree that it was incredibly important to clarify that schools do not have jurisdiction over medical records, and that districts cannot have policies, procedures or resolutions that make it allowable for discrimination against kids,” prime sponsor Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, said after HB 1296 passed Thursday. 

Republicans continue to maintain that Democrats are “gutting” the original initiative. Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, who worked closely with Heywood to develop the original language for Initiative 2081, has been a vocal critic of the proposed changes this session. 

“It’s an awful, awful bill,” Walsh said. “Aside from gutting the Parents’ Bill of Rights, the Senate bolted it onto totally unrelated bills.” 

Republicans expressed additional frustration about two Senate amendments to the bill that folded in parts of policies that were separately introduced by Democratic lawmakers earlier in the session. 

One amendment adds four new protected classes to nondiscrimination provisions and another establishes a new noncompliance process that will be overseen by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

If the bill is signed into law, OSPI will be charged with developing a system to review complaints alleging noncompliance. The office will be responsible for investigating complaints and providing guidance if a school is found in violation of state law. If a school does not respond to multiple warnings and corrective steps from OSPI, up to 20% of state funding to the school district may be withheld and redirected. 

The proposal drew harsh criticism from Republicans in both chambers who described it as “divisive” and warned that withholding funding would harm students and teachers. 

Sen. Claire Wilson, D-Auburn, prime sponsor of SB 5181 and of the original policy proposing a system for OSPI to investigate willful noncompliance, rejected the claim that it would empower OSPI to withhold funding, which she described would be the “very last step” the office would take.

“There has to be accountability when a district decides that they want to intentionally violate a students’ civil rights or intentionally allow a student to be bullied,” Wilson said during an earlier Senate floor debate. 

Sen. Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, spoke out against the amendment after it passed earlier this month. 

“That’s not support — it’s coercion. These aren’t just policy differences. This is an attempt to weaponize education funding and force local schools to adopt a far-left social agenda, regardless of community values or capacity,” the statement read in part. 

With the legislative session adjourning Sunday, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, asked her fellow representatives to concur on the Senate amendments and pass the bill out of the Legislature. 

The Senate changes, Santos said, left the bill “substantially the same, just worded a little bit differently.” Stonier and Wilson both agreed that HB 1296 satisfied the goals they set out to achieve. 

Republicans also objected to the bill’s emergency clause, unsuccessfully introducing amendments to remove it on several occasions. The emergency clause, which Democrats justified by saying immediate clarity is needed for school districts, renders the bill ineligible for referendum. 

Heywood and Walsh vowed to take action regardless. In recent weeks, Heywood and Let’s Go Washington have filed several initiatives to the people that would repeal any changes to the original initiative if successful. 

To qualify for the November ballot they must collect about 386,000 signatures to account for 8% of the votes cast in the last governor’s election. To account for invalid signatures that get thrown out during the verification process, the secretary of state recommends a 25% cushion.

The original Initiative 2081 gathered 448,646 signatures when it circulated in 2023, the fifth most in state history.

“It’s hard to understand why the Legislature is waging a war on parents,” Heywood said. “I think that’s the primary point. Our second is that we will be coming after them one way or another.”