Last week, we reviewed Senate Bill 5181 which will repeal the Parents Rights Initiative and replace it with the draconian Senate Bill 5599 – allowing the state to kidnap our kids and hide them from their parents – a law that was opposed by 99% of all parents – and a law that led to the Parents Rights Initiative in the first place. There will be a hearing on this bill on January 21st at 8 am. Here is a link to the bill page in case you want to submit a comment opposing this bill:
https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=5181&Year=2025&Initiative=false
This week, we will review House Bill 1296 which will further erode the legal rights of parents here in Washington state – and prove beyond any doubt that the Washington State legislature has no respect for the rights of parents and has no understanding of the importance of the parent-child relationship to the health and well being of children.
Before we dive into this bill, I want to make it clear that the true rights of Parents can not be removed by any bill or any legislature. The rights of parents are God Given Rights that preceded not only the Washington State Constitution, but even the US Constitution. The parent-child relationship is a sacred God Given Relationship that is fundamental to the development of the child. Any bill by the legislature to erode parents rights and stand between a parent and their child will be severely harmful not only to the parent but to their child. It is therefore up to all of us who care about the wellbeing of children to protect the rights of their parents.
A Blessing in Disguise
Any parent following the legislature this year has every right to be angry about bills like Senate Bill 5181 and House Bill 1296 - and many other bills which we will be reviewing in the coming weeks. Feel free to email the legislature and let them know you oppose these bills. But also be aware that regardless of the number of parents who contact the them opposing these bills, every one of these anti-parent bills are almost certain to pass this year.
Once these horrible bills pass, it is certain that many more parents will pull their kids out of public schools – joining the tens of thousands of parents who are already home schooling their kids or paying for them to attend private school. Some parents will even move out of the state. But this will still leave more than a million kids left in the public schools whose parents may not have the time or money to move or transfer to a private school.
These million kids and their two million parents will be subjected to the horrible anti-parent laws passed by the legislature this year.
This in turn will lead to further declines in the mental health of children and further increases in the anger of their parents. This could be a blessing in disguise – IF we are able to reach out to these parents and help them better understand that it is the current legislature that is responsible for the crimes being committed against them and their children – this is the point of our Common Sense Community News websites we will discuss again at the end of this article. As ironic as it may seems, the more draconian the anti-parent laws are that are passed in Olympia this year, the greater our chances will be of replacing our Crazy legislators with Common Sense legislators in the 2026 election.
The Devil is in the Details
The title of House Bill 1296 is “Promoting a safe and supportive public education system.” Sounds great doesn’t it? Sadly, as with everything else in Olympia, we have to go beyond the title of the bill and read the actual text of the bill to understand how any given bill will erode parents rights. Note that this bill is scheduled for a hearing in the House Education Committee on January 23rd at 8:30 am so if you want to tell them why you oppose this bill, you will have to act fast. Here is a link to the bill page to submit a comment or to testify:
https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=1296&Year=2025&Initiative=false
Here is a link to House Bill 1296 so you can read the entire bill.
https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/1296.pdf?q=20250116140621
Here are just a few of the major harms of House Bill 1296. On page 1, it begins by adding a new section – meaning it is not modifying existing law but making up entirely new stuff. The harm begins on Page 2 starting on Line 3 where it states: “The office of the superintendent of public instruction shall enforce and obtain compliance with subsection (1) of this section by appropriate order made under chapter 34.05 RCW. Example sanctions that may be included on the order are as follows: Termination of all or part of state apportionment or categorical moneys to the offending school district.“
In short, if any school board gets up the guts to stick up for parents and defy our out of control state legislature, they can have their state funding pulled causing the school district to close down completely.
How this harms parents rights is that one of the main rights of parents is to go before their local school board at the local meetings and explain the problems their kids are facing. What House Bill 1296 does is remove all control over school policies from parents and school board members.
This threat to withhold funding from schools violates several sections of our State Constitution. But the main Section it violates is Article 9, Section 2 which requires the State legislature to fund public schools – not merely the schools that cave to the legislature – but ALL public schools. Article 9, Section 2 states: "The legislature shall provide for a general and uniform system of public schools.” This sentence means that the legislature must provide the funds for a uniform system of public schools. Uniform means the uniform apportionment of funds and the word “shall” means that uniform state funding is required. There are no exceptions.
The entire bill also violates Article 2, Section 28, Clauses 7 and 15 of the Washington State Constitution which state that “The legislature is prohibited from enacting any private or special laws in the following cases: (7) For authorizing the apportionment of any part of the school fund. (15) Providing for the management of common schools.”
Clause 7 means that the legislature is not allowed to threaten school funding. Clause 15 means that the legislature is not allowed to interfer in any way with the management of the public schools.
Shutting down local schools without a vote of the local school board was unconstitutional when Inslee did it in March 2020 – and it is still unconstitutional today. Sadly, almost every bill currently being passed by the State legislature violates our State Constitution. But the only way to really restore our State Constitution is to kick the anti-parent bums in Olympia out of office.
What this bill really does is give spineless school board members an excuse to scare parents by telling the parents that they can not stand up to the legislature because then they will lose funding. The solution is not for school board members to cave to the legislature. It is for school board members to listen to parents and if the legislature or state superintendent actually pulls their funding, then take the superintendent and the legislature to court for passing and or attempting to enforce an unconstitutional law!
The issue of local control versus state control of our schools needs to be a campaign issue of any Common Sense candidate running for school board this year. Clearly the Crazy Crowd currently in Olympia is intend on destroying our schools and parents rights. We need candidates with the courage to protect parents rights and local control of our schools.
The next crime against parents is on Page 3 beginning on Line 2:
“eliminate discrimination in public schools on the basis of gender expression and gender identity; address the unique challenges and needs faced by transgender students and gender-expansive students in public schools; and describe the application of the model policy and procedure prohibiting harassment, intimidation, and bullying required under RCW 28A.600.477 to transgender students and gender-expansive students.”
In plain English, this means allow more boys in the girls bathrooms, more boys in the girls lockerrooms and more boys in girls sports as well as failing to provide gender confused kids – all of whom have serious mental health problems – with the accurate scientific counseling they need and informing these troubled kids that no amount of drugs can turn a boy into a girl or a girl into a boy. It is laws like this that have caused Washington kids to have the worst mental health problems of any kids in the nation (as I have already written about and provided links for in many of my past articles).
The next crime against parents is on Page 8 beginning on Line 25:
This is where the rights of parents from the Parents Rights Initiative are removed Line by Line and replaced with subtle word changes hiding the fact that all of the important rights are being taken away. For example, on Page 9 starting at Line 31 school records are defined to only include educational records but not medical records:
On Page 10 Line 15, the right to be notified about medical procedures being performed on the child is taken away.
On Page 10 Line 36, the right to be notified if their child has been kidnapped is also taken away unless the kidnapping occurs in violation of RCW 28A.605.010 which is the law that permits the kidnapping!
On Page 14 Line 1, there is a section allowing records like name changes and pronoun changes made by teachers and administrators to be kept hidden from parents in order to prevent parents from knowing that their child is being “transitioned” into a “Trans Drug Cult” member.
On Page 14, Line 26 is a provision protecting teachers found guilty of brain washing kids:
On Page 15, Line 12 is an Emergency clause is in case the King County judge allows Parental Notifications as required by the Parents Rights Initiative to be restored.
The fact that the legislature put an emergency clause on a bill that guts parents rights should make it clear that the 2025 legislature is intend on declaring open warfare against any parent and any school board member that might oppose their crazy agenda.
In short, House Bill 1296, like Senate Bill 5181 completely guts parents rights here in Washington state. Sadly, this bill is likely to pass. The only good news is that passing this bill will once and for all expose the fact that leaders of the Washington State Democratic Party are completely against Parents Rights.
Hopefully, this monsterous bill will encourage more parents to join our Washington Parents Network and start attending our Sunday meetings from 4 to 5 pm and help us build community news websites all across this state so that we can boot these insane anti-parent legislators out of office in the 2026 General Election.
I have written an 80 page four year plan to build a series of Common Sense Community News websites in communities all over Washington state. Our course on how to do this is 12 weeks long and begins in March 2025. These community news websites are easy to run and have an operating cost of only $2 per month. They can be run by a single person or a group of friends.
If you are interested in helping with our plan, email me and I will email you back with a copy of this plan. As always, I look forward to your questions and comments. Also email me if you would like the link to our next online meeting – Sundays 4 to 5 pm – where we will discuss this article and our community news websites in greater detail.
Regards,
David Spring M. Ed.
david@washingtonparentsnetwork>;(dot)com