On Friday, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) signed a bill into law that requires all school districts to notify the parents of students if any sexually explicit material is to be taught in the classroom.
The Daily Caller reports that the bill was authored by State Senator Siobhan Dunnavant (R-Va.), which gives the state’s Department of Education the authority to develop and enforce the policy. All local school boards in the state must enact the policy by January 1st, 2023.
Under the new law, parents will be allowed to “review instructional materials that includes sexually explicit content,” and may be allowed to instead show “non-explicit instructional material” to their children as an alternative if they decline.
According to Youngkin’s office, the bill was one of many that Youngkin signed on April 8th. A similar bill had previously been brought before former Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.), who vetoed it; McAuliffe sought a second non-consecutive term in last year’s election, but was defeated by Youngkin in an upset victory. Youngkin’s win was widely credited to his campaigning on cultural and social issues in the final weeks of the campaign, vowing to ban the teaching of far-left concepts such as transgenderism and critical race theory from public schools in Virginia.
Youngkin had signed another education bill on Friday, passing a new law that expanded the Advanced Studies Diploma program option for high school students, aiming to provide greater “transparency and honesty” in measuring students’ performance. The bill also required schools to focus their curricula on “grade-level proficiency” in the subjects of “reading and mathematics.”
Youngkin said that signing both bills would “deliver on my Day One promises to give parents a greater say in their children’s education.”