The debate at Tuesday’s school board meeting highlights the ongoing cultural wars going on across North Carolina and the nation.

It led to state lawmakers adopting the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” The law’s provisions include barring instruction on gender identity, sexuality or sexual activity in kindergarten through fourth-grade classrooms.

Speakers regularly debate at school board meetings about what books should be allowed in school libraries.

“The school board is debating a grant from the organization We Need Diverse Books, which includes ‘Boy Meets Boy,’ etc,” speaker John Balog said at this week’s board meeting. “You can go on their website and check it out.

“Yes we need diversity. We need subject and curriculum diversity. We need passing grades in math, English, science, social studies, music.”

He said anything else needs parental consent.

But speaker Renee Sekel said students need to read about the lives of marginalized students. As an example she pointed to the case of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary student in Oklahoma who died this month a day after a fight in school.

“If such books weren’t under such deep attack then maybe a precious 16-year-old non-binary child who was beaten brutally to death in a bathroom in Oklahoma … at their school, good gravy, would be alive today. These are matters of life and death.” Sekel said.

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“Well now they could add in anything they wanted,” explained Sekel, who is cofounder of the group Save Our Schools NC, and North Carolina deputy director for the organization Red Wine and Blue. “If Governor Cooper had tried to veto it, then they would be able to say that Governor Cooper vetoed Medicaid.”

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Over four months after the State Senate passed the Parent’s Bill of Rights piece of legislation, the House has taken it up.

Renee Sekel was at the legislature back in February when the bill was first heard, and she was back in June when it was brought up again.

Sekel says about five years ago, she became an accidental advocate.

“I found out about an issue that was affecting our schools from one of our school board members, and I thought, well, ‘Hey, we need to fix that.’ And I very naively thought that would be quick and easy,” Sekel said.

Now she works for Red, Wine and Blue — a political organizing group aimed at suburban women.

Read more on Spectrum News

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A controversial bill that would restrict how the state’s public school teachers discuss race, gender and sexuality was approved by the state House by a 68-49 party line vote on Wednesday, and is now headed to the state Senate.

Several Democrats from the state’s urban centers vigorously opposed House Bill 187. The Republican-backed legislation would require school districts to give a 30-day notice to parents and the state Department of Public Instruction if teachers or invited guests plan to expose students to more than a dozen concepts GOP lawmakers deem unacceptable.

Read more at NC Policy Watch

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After hearing her child’s teacher call them by that name in a parent-teacher meeting, Sekel said, she realized her child was already happily out at school. In time, she grew thankful that the public school had been a safe and affirming place for her child to express their identity before it was fully accepted at home — and that they were able to tell family on their own terms.

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Renee Sekel, a Cary mom who works for the NC chapter of Red Wine & Blue, a group that seeks to mobilize suburban moms to get involved in politics, also opposes the bill.

“I think most parents—and most kids—want our schools to teach accurate and complete history.  I trust that our students are smart enough and strong enough to understand a full history of the United States, and don’t need extremists in the Legislature to whitewash it for them,” Sekel told Cardinal & Pine. I’d rather they spent their time on something helpful, like funding schools adequately while we have a budget surplus.”

Read more at Cardinal & Pine

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