Parents Have Rights and Responsibilities in Their Child’s Education
By Jane Brady, Chair, A Better Delaware
Parents have the fundamental right and responsibility for the care, custody, and control of their children. So embedded in this concept in our society, that there are laws that impose liability on parents for failing to care for, or control, their child. Importantly, this includes a parent’s right to make decisions regarding educational issues.
The recent report on student assessment, which shows many students in Delaware performing at less than 50% of grade level competency, underscores the need to help our children do better educationally. A cooperative relationship between the schools and parents, built on transparency, is essential to provide quality education for the children of Delaware.
Parents, guardians, and the public should have access to all important and relevant information regarding our public schools. House Bill 326 proposed by State Representative Charlie Postles, who previously served as President of the Milford School Board, that would require that such information be made available through a school website portal. The portal would include public access to:
1) A syllabus for each instructional course.
2) Access to, and a description of, instructional materials, textbooks, and digital resources that educators plan to utilize in each instructional course.
3) The school’s policy on how information is communicated to parents, guardians, and the public about violent incidents occurring at the school.
4) What health care services are offered at the school and how parental and guardian notification and consent are handled regarding these services.
All schools would be required to have a procedure for parents to withdraw their child from any specific instruction the parent objects to their child receiving. The school would have to make reasonable arrangements to provide alternative educational activities to the child. School personnel would be prevented from imposing a penalty upon a child who is withdrawn from instruction to which the parents object. Parents would be provided access to all written and electronic recordings concerning the parent’s child that are controlled by a district or anyone authorized to provide services to students.
Finally, a process for filing, reviewing, and appealing a complaint made by a parent, which is essential, is provided for. It is the parent’s right and responsibility to develop and embrace those family values of faith, work ethic, responsibility, and discipline that will prepare their child for success in school as well as in life. What a child is told in school and how they are taught should not be kept from those most responsible for their child – the parents.
We at A Better Delaware support the concepts represented in this legislation and encourage the General Assembly to address the issue of parents’ access to information about their child’s academic and social experience at school.
Jane Bady serves as Chair of A Better Delaware. She previously served as Attorney General of Delaware and as a Judge of the Delaware Superior Court