Ohio recently passed House Bill 8, more commonly known and referred to as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” This Bill goes into effect on April 9, 2025. 

The Bill requires that no later than July 1, 2025, the Board of Education (BOE) of each city, local, exempted village, and joint vocational school develop and adopt a policy to promote parental involvement in the public school system. BOEs are to ensure that any sexuality content is age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate for the age of the student receiving the instruction, regardless of the age or grade level of the student.  Additionally, prior to providing instruction that includes sexuality content, BOEs must provide parents the opportunity to review any instructional material. Upon request of a parent, a child must be excused from instruction and instead participate in an alternate assignment. BOEs are also required to promptly notify a student’s parent of any substantial change in the student’s services, including counseling services, or monitoring related to the student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being or the school’s ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment. The policy must specify how the parent is notified and also prohibit school district personnel from directly or indirectly encouraging a student to withhold from a parent information concerning the student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being, or a change in related services or monitoring. The policy must adopt a procedure to obtain authorization from parents prior to providing any type of healthcare service to the student. The policy must prohibit the district from preventing parental access to the student’s education and health records maintained by the school. BOEs must notify the parents at the start of each school year about each service offered and their option to withhold consent or decline each service. The policy must provide guidelines for parents to file concerns with the school about the topics within the Bill and establish a process to resolve the concern within 30 days of receipt, including conducting a hearing. The school’s policy must also be publicly available and posted prominently on its website, if it has one. 

This Bill also strengthens Ohio’s existing law around religious release time by creating a mandate. Prior to the Bill, Ohio allowed BOEs to make a policy to let students go to a course in religious instruction during the school day. With this Bill, it now becomes a requirement. Under the Bill, religious release time instruction must meet the following criteria: (a) the courses must take place off school grounds; (b) the courses must be privately funded; and (c) the students must have parental permission.

In addition to requiring BOEs to adopt these new policies, House Bill 8 also defines several terms. Those terms include “biological sex,” “sexuality,” and “student’s mental, emotional or physical health or well-being.” “Biological sex” is defined as the child’s sex at birth, without regard to that child’s psychological, chosen, or subjective experience of gender. “Sexuality” is defined as any oral or written instruction, presentation, image, or description of sexual concepts or gender ideology. The Bill specifically excludes instruction or presentations on venereal disease education, child sexual abuse prevention, and sexual violence prevention education. The Bill defines a “student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being” broadly. It includes academic performance; any sickness, physical injury, or psychological trauma; any pattern of bullying or harassment by or against a student in violation of district policy; any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s biological sex; and any exhibition of suicidal ideation or persistent symptoms of depression, severe anxiety, or other mental health issues. The Bill also specifically prohibits school personnel from directly or indirectly encouraging a student to withhold from a parent information and from discouraging or prohibiting parental notification concerning the student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being, or a change in related services or monitoring.

Proponents of this Bill say that it protects children by safeguarding parents’ rights to make important decisions for their children. They argue that parents, not bureaucrats or school personnel, should be making the important education and healthcare decisions for their children. Parents should know what is happening with their children and schools should not have the authority to keep secret information about their children from them. The Bill also allows all Ohio families to have the freedom to choose off-campus religious instruction during school hours. 

Opponents of this Bill have called it the “Unsafe Student’s Act” that forces “Don’t Say Gay” and “Don’t Say Trans” into the classroom. They argue that the language will decrease access to medically accurate sex education as it does not require a standard of medical accuracy in the instructional materials used in high schools across the state. Opponents also state that the term “sexuality” is intentionally vague so as to target gender identity, sexuality, and diverse family dynamics and relationships. They also argue that public schools are already required to establish policies that allow parents to be actively involved in their children’s education and to maintain consistent and effective communication between parents and their children. Finally, they argue that requiring a district to report changes to a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being to a parent is code for requiring districts to out LGBTQ+ students to their family, causing schools to no longer be a safe, trusted space for students and educators. 

Regardless of whether one supports or opposes House Bill 8, it is important that BOEs understand all of the additional requirements in place and ensure that their districts’ policies are in compliance with this new law.