Amy Bohn is the president and co-founder of California-based PERK (Safety of the Instructional Rights of Children). The group advocates for parental rights on the native and state degree, and has been a relentless thorn within the aspect of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Bohn sat down with Fox Information Digital to debate California’s just lately handed laws, AB 1955, which might prohibit educators from informing mother and father when their youngsters change their pronouns, title, or gender identification in school.
Bohn argues that the laws is a usurpation of parental rights.
“So California’s AB 1955 is, I think, one of the worst bills we’ve seen thus far, that prohibits parents from being notified or informed about their child, changing their gender identity or anything like that at school,” she mentioned. “So it completely prohibits educators, teachers and the school from letting parents know about any kind of change with their child. It also promotes secrecy… removing all of this information from parents, and creates a file on parents at the school level as well, a secret file.”
Amy Bohn, co-founder and president of PERK. (Fox Information Digital)
Supporters of the laws counsel that college students are entitled to privateness. The invoice’s sponsor, Assemblyman Chris Ward, a Democrat who represents a San Diego-based district, argues that it affords college students “the dignity of deciding when they’re ready to share some of the most private information about themselves.”
Minors, Bohn mentioned, don’t have the authorized standing to consent to creating such choices.
“I would say that the issue in this is that a child does not have the capacity to consent. So every minor has to grow up and is developing, and a brain is not fully developed until they’re 25 years old. That’s science. So to even think that children have some kind of capacity to consent to something like this without their parents… that’s why there are consent laws in place,” she mentioned. “And parents are there to guide, to protect, to make sure that their children are not exploited or taken advantage of. I think what he’s saying is honestly utter nonsense.”
Bohn mentioned she believes that the laws enjoys the backing of Newsom for causes of political expediency.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“I think he wants it to go into law because I think it’s a political move, to be honest. And that’s also one of the problems with this bill is they’re using children in this political game, this political agenda,” she mentioned. “I don’t think he’s concerned or cares about the children. And I think that we have seen as PERK, in California, Newsom is eroding parental rights.”
Whereas AB 1955 has been a serious subject for PERK this 12 months, the group has additionally been lively in different public coverage battles, significantly associated to instructional insurance policies through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bohn has been vocal in opposition to vaccine mandates at school districts.
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“I do not believe schools should be able to mandate vaccines, because that’s a medical treatment. That’s something that parents and doctors should be the stewards of,” she mentioned. “We’ve actually seen mandates across the state of California on vaccines, including the COVID mandate, and it was illegal for them to do that. They were bypassing the legislative process and the [state] Health Department.”
PERK was concerned in litigation difficult such insurance policies.
“We pushed back against that. We filed lawsuits. We won those lawsuits, by the way,” Bohn mentioned. “I just don’t think mandates belong anywhere in our society, because if we’re supposed to be free, which we are, then mandates are completely [the] opposite of what the Constitution stands for.”
Bohn and PERK additionally fought Newsom and the lecturers unions over COVID lockdowns.
The California state capitol constructing in Sacramento. (Arturo Holmes/Getty Pictures for Nationwide City League)
“So from the very beginning, when we heard Gov. Newsom say it was going to be two weeks to slow the spread and schools closed, we looked at each other and [we knew] this is going to be a year or longer,” she mentioned. “Immediately, within two weeks, we sent a letter to Gov. Newsom and to the legislators saying, ‘This is bad policy. We can already tell you how this is going to harm children.’”
Bohn added: “You shouldn’t be implementing these kinds of lockdown measures, especially on the kids. So we started to push back immediately at the highest level. Then, we informed parents, ‘This is what’s going on. This is how it’s going to hurt your families, your kids and their education and academic learning and the academic loss we were anticipating,’ and got parents involved to push back.”
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PERK was credited with driving native protests and activism in school board conferences within the wake of the prolonged closures.
“So we actually brought lots of parents and people to school board meetings to encourage the schools to open back up as quickly as possible. We put out surveys. We filed lawsuits. We did a lot in the space to try to help get the schools opened back up,” Bohn mentioned. “And we’re very active in representing hundreds of thousands of families and kids that needed those schools open.”
Newsom’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.
