Youngkin Signs 100 Bills, Including Bill Requiring Notification to Parents of Sexually Explicit Instructional Material In Schools

Facing an April 11 deadline, Governor Glenn Youngkin signed over 100 bills last week, including State Senator Siobhan Dunnavant’s (R-Henrico) SB 656, a bill requiring Virginia public schools to notify parents about sexually explicit instructional material, allow parental review, and provide non-explicit alternatives. The bill instructs the Department of Education to create model policies and requires school boards to pass similar policies.

“These kinds of materials that are being presented in school as an opportunity to develop that relationship between the parent and the child, talk about uncomfortable and challenging things,” Dunnavant said in the Senate Committee on Education and Health in February. “We heard in testimony from the subject matter experts that there was not a consistent policy across the school boards in Virginia, and that it was extremely variable. And as a result, having clear guidelines from the Department of Education would accomplish exactly what everybody thinks already exists, but it doesn’t.”

State Senators Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City) and Lynwood Lewis Jr. (D-Accomack) helped Republicans pass the bill out of the Democrat-controlled education committee, and were the only Democratic votes for the bills on the Senate floor. Virginians have been debating the issue of controversial materials both at the local school board level and in statewide elections. Former Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed a similar bill during his term, and that record became an issue during the 2021 election cycle when outrage over sexually explicit books in schools and the need to increase parental oversight in schools became a key Republican issue. Democrats highlighted books by black authors that were among those targeted by Republicans, and warned that the calls to ban certain materials smacked of book-burning…. (Excerpt from the Virginia Star)