The Seattle Times does not want you to know what is happening to your child at school. That is not a surprise. What should surprise you is how many parents still believe the lie that those rights are already protected.
They are not. Voters sent I-2081 to Olympia so schools would stop keeping secrets. Hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians said parents come first. Then the Legislature passed HB 1296 in 2025 and stripped the law voters had already won.
Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen made the new position plain: Parents “don’t have a right to have notice, they don’t have a right to have consent about” their child’s health care decisions. Let’s Go Washington and Washington citizens answered the only way a free people can: “We do not co-parent with the government.”
What Olympia took, I-001 puts back
If the rights were already safe, Democrats would not have needed a new bill to gut them. I-001 restores the Parents’ Bill of Rights and repeals the changes that weakened it.
Schools would have to produce records in 10 business days, not 45. Those records would include medical files, mental-health counseling files, discipline, attendance, and other student-specific papers the school already keeps.
Parents would get notice when a school offers medical services, except in a true emergency. They would get notice when treatment can hit insurance or a copay. They would get notice when the school arranges follow-up care after the bell rings. They would get immediate notice if a child is taken off campus without permission, including to a youth shelter or host home. They would get immediate notice when a crime is deemed committed against the child or by the child, not only if it happened on campus during school hours.
Mental-health records are one of eight categories, not the whole bill. Counselors are not required to hand over a transcript of every conversation. The initiative also keeps an abuse-and-neglect safeguard. A school does not have to release medical or counseling records during an investigation when the parent is the target, unless a court orders it. Students can still see a counselor. Parents simply stop being the last to know.
This is not a theory. Families are already paying.
Jodie Holman says a judge ruled her unfit, not for abuse, but for not moving fast enough on her child’s gender transition. She says the school helped set that in motion. She has not seen her daughter since November 2025. The family had already sought counseling and wanted to go slowly. Holman says school officials connected the teenager with outside groups, including Oasis Youth Center and TeamChild, and that a school counselor later testified against the parents.
Holman joined a friend-of-the-court brief in the case now headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Oral arguments in International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson are set for December 7.
Konstantin Averkiev asked Lake Washington School District for notice and an opt-out for his son. A teacher agreed. Then the boy, in fourth grade, sat through a Pride Month lesson that included classroom talk of gender-change surgery. The district later rejected nearly all of the father’s fifth-grade requests, including counseling sessions and pronouns that clash with his Christian faith.
Alliance Defending Freedom is suing on behalf of the family. “Parents have the fundamental right to direct their children’s religious upbringing and education, even at school,” said ADF counsel Kate Anderson. The Constitution does not require a father to surrender that right as the price of a public classroom.
You cannot just change schools and walk away
A September brief before the Supreme Court makes the statewide trap plain. Washington’s 2023 shelter laws let youth shelters withhold notice when a runaway seeks so-called gender-affirming care. First Liberty Institute calls it a Sword of Damocles hanging in the home. Parents change how they parent because they fear the child will leave. “Parents cannot opt out by changing schools,” said Ryan Gardner of First Liberty. “They stand to lose their kids simply by living in the state.” They can lose custody for as long as the state wishes, not just for the school day.
Lawmakers said the quiet part out loud. Sen. Marko Liias framed the bill as help for a young person seeking that care “in the face of opposition and hostility from their family.” Rep. Jamila Taylor said, “Home is not safe. We must step in.” That is the twisted logic I-001 interrupts at the schoolhouse door: notice, records, removal from campus, and medical arrangements made behind a parent’s back.
Even former Democrats have had enough
This is not a concern for only one party. “Many of us who were Inds or Dems are now only voting republican because of the trans ideology that has infected our kids,” one Washington parent wrote. “We’re single policy voters. This horrific ideology is destroying my kids, my family and my equality. Until Dems stand up for women and children, they lose.”
The Seattle Times still insists parents should not have more information about their own children. Teachers, parents, doctors, counselors, and the hundreds of thousands who signed the petitions disagree.
What happens if we do nothing
Parents stay outside the conversation. Government employees take over the parenting role. The opposition is counting on silence: no letter to the editor, no talk with a neighbor, no answer to the next false claim on social media.
Parents deserve the records. Families deserve notice when something serious happens. Students do better when parents and schools work together, not when the state hides the file. No government employee can care about your child the way you do.
Vote YES on I-001 this November. Send the facts to ten friends. Talk across the fence. Write the letter. Make the calls.
Parents first. Government last. We do not co-parent with Olympia.
Vote Yes for Parents Rights. Vote YES on I-001.
Nancy Churchill is the chair of the Ferry County Republican Party. She may be reached at [email protected]. The opinions expressed in Dangerous Rhetoric are her own.
SOURCES:
1) Ari Hoffman / Let’s Go Washington response to the Seattle Times on I-001, X, Aug. 30, 2026, https://bit.ly/4yvFc7a
2) The Center Square Washington, X post on Jodie Holman, Sept. 11, 2026, https://bit.ly/3UOUXI0
3) Center Square / Washington in Focus report on Jodie Holman and International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson, https://bit.ly/4AcIL3Q
4) Yahoo News, “Washington father sues school district for denying religious opt-out for 5th grader from LGBTQ instruction”, https://yhoo.it/4xTmCpJ
5) Tyler O’Neil, Daily Signal, “Parents Can’t Escape Washington’s Transgender Policies by Changing Schools, Supreme Court Brief Argues,” Sept. 11, 2026, https://bit.ly/4reRLBA
6) DIAG Washington quoting Monica Powell, X, Sept. 11, 2026, https://bit.ly/4gPLk4h
7) Let’s Go Washington, Initiative I-001 / IL26-001 explainer, https://bit.ly/472iiIJ
Nancy Churchill is a writer, educator, and conservative activist in rural eastern Washington State. She chairs the Ferry County Republican Party and advocates for effective citizen influence through Influencing Olympia Effectively. She may be reached at [email protected]. The opinions expressed in Dangerous Rhetoric are her own. Dangerous Rhetoric is available on Substack and X.
