Gov. Mike DeWine signed nearly 30 laws into place on Jan. 8, one of which is the ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights,’ which forces teachers, K-12, to tell parents if a student is a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

The Ohio Legislature website says House Bill 8 “require[s] public schools to adopt a policy on parental notification on student health and well-being and instructional materials with sexuality content and regarding school district policies for released time courses in religious instruction.”

The primary sponsors are Republican Representative D.J. Swearingen, who represents parts of Ottawa, Erie and Huron counties, which includes Sandusky, and Sara P. Carruthers, who is a member of the Ohio State Board of Education. 

Swearingen graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from BGSU in 2009.  Co-sponsor Theresa Gavarone earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration from BGSU in 1988 and served on the Bowling Green City Council.  Another co-sponsor, Sandra O’Brien is a BGSU alumni, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education in 1973.

The bill was introduced on Feb. 15, 2023 and was passed in the House on June 21, 2023.  The Senate passed it on Dec. 18, 2024, and it was signed by the governor on Jan. 8.  It is set to be effective on April 9.

The bill creates legislation on what is taught in schools and also creates laws on notifying parents about what their child tells staff members and teachers pertaining to their gender and sexuality.  Associate professor of political science, Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes describes this as the “outing of kids.”

“The piece that gets a lot of attention is the outing of kids. There is a component of this legislation that requires teachers to share information about the student if their child is identifying (as) something other than the gender they are assigned at birth at school,” Kalaf-Hughes said. “It also may mean that if your child is out as a member of the LGBTQ community at school, but not at home, it requires the teacher to tell the parents.”

The bill defines this portion as, “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 for the student.”

The bill defines ‘mental, emotional, or physical health’ as “a student’s academic performance; Any significant sickness or physical injury, or any psychological trauma suffered by a student; Any harassment, intimidation, or bullying; Any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s biological sex; Exhibition of suicidal ideation or persistent symptoms of depression, or severe anxiety, or other mental health issues.”

The concern of this bill is the outing of students, whether it is gender identity or sexuality.

“There is concern that this is going to lead to the outing of kids who may not be ready to come out to their parents,” Kalaf-Hughes said. “There is evidence already that there has been a pretty significant amount of concern around this because I read one article that was (about) an LGBTQ+ hotline that you can call for support, and they saw triple the amount of calls in January.”

Between Jan. 8, when the bill was signed, to Jan. 15, Rainbow Youth Project USA’s crisis hotline has taken 913 calls from the LGBTQ+ youth community.

Along with this, the bill also evokes barriers to what can be taught in classrooms.

The bill says it will “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.”

The bill defines what ‘age appropriate’ is but still does not define what exactly falls under it.

“‘Age-appropriate’ and ‘developmentally appropriate’ content refers to activities or items that are generally accepted as suitable for children of the same chronological age or level of maturity or that are determined to be developmentally appropriate for a child, based on the development of cognitive, emotional, physical, and behavioral capacities that are typical for an age or age group,” as said in House Bill 8.

While this provides a definition, it is still very vague on what exactly should or should not be taught.

“You don’t want to advocate for a strict state enforcement system necessarily, but without that clarity, you leave this open both to interpretation but also to misinterpretation,” Kalaf-Hughes said.

The bill does make it clear that younger grades should receive no instruction on ‘sexuality content.’

“No school district or third party acting on behalf of a district shall provide instruction that includes sexuality content to students in grades kindergarten through three,” as stated in the bill.

Many parents, like Kalaf-Hughes, are concerned as to what is defined as “sexuality content.”  The bill provides a definition but still leaves it open-ended.

“You don’t have a lot of definitions.  If there is a book in a kindergarten, first or second grade classroom about a boy who likes wearing dresses or about a family where they have two same-sex parents, does that count as sexuality content?” Kalaf-Hughes said.

The bill defines ‘sexuality content’ as “any oral or written instruction, presentation, image, or

description of sexual concepts or gender ideology provided in a classroom setting.”

It also provides examples of what does not fall under this content.

“Instruction or presentations in sexually transmitted infection education, child sexual abuse prevention, and sexual violence prevention education; Instruction or presentations in sexually transmitted infection education emphasizing abstinence; Incidental references to sexual concepts or gender ideology occurring outside of formal instruction or presentations on such topics, including references made during class participation and in schoolwork,” as written in House Bill 8.

While this is all new legislation, the bill also cements pre-existing laws.

“Essentially what this bill would do is a couple of things that are repetitive of stuff that we already have in the state of Ohio, including notifying parents about sex education content,” Kalaf-Hughes said.

The language of the bill says, “Prior to providing instruction that includes sexuality content or permitting a third party to provide such instruction on behalf of the district, provide parents the opportunity to review any instructional material that includes sexuality content.”

The bill also focuses on parents learning about school-provided healthcare and counseling services, which was already done by many school districts.

“Parents get notified about school-provided healthcare services, and schools are not providing healthcare services to children without parental permission anyway,” Kalaf-Hughes said.

“Adopt a procedure to obtain authorization from parents prior to providing any type of health care service to the student, including physical, mental, and behavioral health care services. Under the procedure, a parent may choose whether to authorize a district to provide a health care service to the parent’s child,” as stated in House Bill 8.

In order to adopt the procedure, the bill provides two rules that school districts must follow.

“At the beginning of the school year, notify parents of each health care service offered at, or facilitated in cooperation with, their student’s school and their option to withhold consent or decline any specified service” and “prior to providing a health care service to a student, notify a parent whether the service is required to be provided by the school district under state law and if other options for a student to access the service exist,” as stated in House Bill 8.

While the bill addresses rules that many districts have already enforced, it enacts new ones too.

Since the bill is so vague on what falls under each category, it will be up to the school boards to create rules for each district, but these rules will still fall under the new laws put into place by House Bill 8.

“A lot of this is going to come down to the school boards, and if there are school boards that really want to pursue an aggressive enforcement mechanism here, they can,” Kalaf-Hughes said.

While the bill creates legislation on sexuality in and out of the classroom, it also creates new laws on absences from school due to religious matters.  This section includes all religions.

“It requires school districts to adopt a policy that allows students to be excused from school in the middle of the day for religious instruction,” Kalaf-Hughes said.  “So some districts already had that in place, but some districts didn’t allow it.”

Other states have attempted to pass laws just like Ohio’s House Bill 8.  Laws like this have faced backlash in the past from other states.  Kalaf-Hughes believes this will happen in Ohio too.  While this law stops conversations, it can’t change the feelings and beliefs students hold.

“I think the goal is to mute the conversation. But it doesn’t make people disappear. The people are still there,” Kalaf-Hughes said.