A majority of likely North Carolina voters support passing a Parents’ Bill of Rights in the state, according a new poll released on Thursday.
The survey asked respondents:
This year twenty-six states have introduced bills to expand parental rights in schools. Such legislation typically reaffirms parental access to curriculum and classroom materials and often authorizes academic and financial transparency requirements for the school. In addition, these bills make parents the primary decision-makers regarding their child’s health and medical decisions and provide parents with opt-out options regarding controversial surveys or age-inappropriate classroom materials. Would you support or oppose the passage of a Parents’ Bill of Rights in North Carolina?
Out of 600 likely general election voters, 57 percent say they “support a Parents’ Bill of Rights for North Carolina,” including 47.3 percent who strongly support and 9.7 percent who somewhat support. Twenty-four percent oppose the idea, including 10.2 percent who somewhat oppose and 14.2 percent who strongly oppose. The Civitas poll was conducted by Cyngal from May 20-21 with a margin of error of ±3.95 percent.
The survey was conducted a few days before North Carolina lawmakers introduced a bill which would create a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” and bar instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity from curriculums for students in kindergarten through third grade.
“Public school units could not adopt forms or procedures that prohibited employees from notifying parents about a child’s health or well-being or a change in services or monitoring, or that encouraged a child to withhold health or well-being information or changes in services or monitoring from the parent,” the bill reads in part. “Instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity would not be permitted in the curriculum provided in kindergarten through third grade.”
The law is similar to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Bill, which was falsely labeled by leftist critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law despite the fact that the word “gay” is nowhere in the bill.
North Carolina Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger (R) did say the law would differ slightly from the Florida bill. Florida’s law says “a school district may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
“There’s no attempt to squelch folks from talking about things,” Berger said, according to WRAL-TV. “There is a specific prohibition on it being part of a curriculum in kindergarten through third grade.”
Berger said parents started taking extra notice of what their children are learning after schools went remote during the pandemic.
“This is an issue that parents all across the state have been concerned about,” he said. “They are worried about things that they have seen.”