Last updated on February 13th, 2024 at 09:01 am
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is taking action against school districts that seemingly allow students to transition gender without parental consent. Kobach, who asserted parents should be involved in decisions with significant medical and psychological impacts, identified six districts supposedly introducing such policies and wrote to them in December.
Upon Kobach’s intervention, Belle Plaine and Maize districts quickly amended their policies, while Kansas City, Shawnee Mission, and Topeka refused to change their stance. The Olathe School District, however, appears to be revisiting its guidelines. Existing guidance suggests that staff should generally obtain parental consent before publicly addressing a student by their preferred name/pronoun. Still, it indicates there could be instances where parents may not be informed.
Experts argue that parental exclusion policies can harm the parent-child relationship, applauding Kansas’s swift rectification of the matter.