BUZZ
North Carolina parent group gives Wake County district 15-days … or else they’ll sue
Parents at a North Carolina elementary school have given the school district a two-week deadline to comply with their demands of allowing children to opt out of a transgender teacher’s music class — or face a lawsuit.
According to The Daily Signal, the group Middle Creek Parental Rights doesn’t object to Wake County Public Schools hiring a male music teacher who identifies as a female, it just wants “accommodations to protect [parents’] religious freedom to raise their children according to their fundamental beliefs about sexuality and gender.”
These accommodations include not having to use female pronouns with the teacher, no “gender identity and sexuality” instruction “without advance parental notice,” assurances the teacher “will not share a bathroom, locker room or similar space with students,” and guarantees of no “retaliation” against families who “asserts these rights,” The News & Observer reports.
The district reportedly initially refused any accommodation, and informed parents that music is a “required weekly class.” If students skipped the class, their absences would be marked as “unexcused.”
Middle Creek Parental Rights enlisted attorneys from the conservative Thomas More Society, which gave Wake County officials 15 days to respond to the group’s requests. The lawyers contend “recent Supreme Court precedents” favor the parent group.
In their letter to the school district, they note while the 2020 SCOTUS case Bostock v. Clayton County ruled “employers may not fire staff over their gender identity or sexual orientation,” 2025’s Mahmoud v. Taylor allows parents to opt out of lessons “regarding LGBTQ+ materials and instruction.”
According to the News & Observer report, the district “has not publicly confirmed if the opt-out requests are being rejected,” and referred to its “class assignments” policy which states “the principal shall balance any individual request for assignment or reassignment within the school against the welfare of other students and the efficient operation of the school.”
A Thomas More Society press release claims district officials “reserve the right to discipline students who decline to use the teacher’s preferred pronouns and courtesy title.”
The group’s letter to the district also addresses doxxing concerns; a speaker at a board meeting had called parents wanting the accommodations “bigots,” and had asked that their kids be expelled.
It also claims a part-time district employee “sent a profane text message” to a parent, and that “critics posted information about a concerned parent’s employer.”
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