Minnesota Parental Opt-Out Statute

I just learned today about Minn. Stats. § 120B.20, enacted in 1993 (paragraph breaks added):

Each school district shall have a procedure for a parent, guardian, or an adult student, 18 years of age or older, to review the content of the instructional materials to be provided to a minor child or to an adult student and, if the parent, guardian, or adult student objects to the content, to make reasonable arrangements with school personnel for alternative instruction.

Alternative instruction may be provided by the parent, guardian, or adult student if the alternative instruction, if any, offered by the school board does not meet the concerns of the parent, guardian, or adult student.

The school board is not required to pay for the costs of alternative instruction provided by a parent, guardian, or adult student.

School personnel may not impose an academic or other penalty upon a student merely for arranging alternative instruction under this section.

School personnel may evaluate and assess the quality of the student's work.

Pretty interesting, in part because it's so categorical, applying to any basis for objection to any instructional materials on any topics, for any grade. I'm not sure it's a good idea, but I have to admit that it's been on the books for 30 years and the skies don't seem to have fallen because of it. I therefore thought I'd pass it along for our readers to consider and discuss.

Comments

[Dilan Esper]

I am opting out of my kindergartener's instruction in the alphabet. I will teach him the cyrillic alphabet instead!

[Dr. Ed 2]

"...to make reasonable arrangements with school personnel for alternative instruction."

That means if the superintendent wants to let you do it you can, and if the superintendent doesn't, you can't.

Cyrillic would be considered "unreasonable."

[Rossami]

Under the wording of this law (as quoted above), no, the superintendent cannot veto the parental alternative. The superintendent can merely say that the school district won't deliver that alternative. That then means only that the parents themselves must provide the alternative education (and do it at their own cost).

Stated more simply, the law lets the school decide that the delivery is unreasonable, not the alternative education itself.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I read it differently -- and believe that most school administrators would read it the way I do. The alternative has to be reasonable as we (school) define it -- or you can sue us.

For example, if you want to run a Christian sex ed curriculum that is biologically factual, that's reasonable. Telling the child that babies are delivered by storks is not.

[Randal]

I think you're both wrong. The reasonableness requirement doesn't depend on who provides the alternative instruction. But a careful read reveals that the alternative instruction itself need not be reasonable. Just the arrangements need to be reasonable. The instruction itself could be totally crazypants.

Reasonable arrangements just means things like, the student needs to continue to otherwise participate in school, they can't, you know, go to France to learn French. The alternative instruction needs to be timely, it can't take a million years. Things like that.

[Rossami]

Your "arrangements" is what I meant by "delivery". I'll accept the correction.

[Longtobefree]

Sorry, but biologically factual is NOT acceptable.
Not if you insist on pretending there are only two sexes.

I suspect you could get away with the stork thing, as long as the stork in question is gender fluid and doesn't believe in flying.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

There's also this ambiguous sentence:

School personnel may evaluate and assess the quality of the student's work.

It's a pretty vague oversight.

[Randal]

I think this is just a way of saying that the student's grade will still be determined by the school, not the parent.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

That's the thing. It's so vague it can mean merely a report to the alternative teacher, part of the grade, or rejection.

[Krychek_2]

Reasonable from the student's standpoint, or from the school's standpoint?

The larger issue, though, is that the schools cannot accommodate every viewpoint. At some point they have to say, This is our curriculum, and if you are dissatisfied, perhaps you would be happier somewhere else.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Isn't that precisely what this statute is designed to address?

[Bored Lawyer]

Da!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The disaffected
professor tosses red meat
to obsolete fans

That's why the prof is,
among other attributes,
soon-to-be-former

[Dr. Ed 2]

Did it ever occur to you that after 26 years of teaching the same thing he might want to move on to doing something different?

While there are exceptions, very few professors teach much more than that today, and those who do aren’t very good because they’ve burnt out. The same thing is true of high school teachers (elementary school teachers will switch grade levels).

He is going on to do something else — are you so much of a fascist that you can’t respect individual choice?

And look at this a different way -- he's now been there long enough to be getting the children of his former students. That's inevitably a wakeup call to a teacher when that starts happening -- and it's incredibly embarrassing when you call them by their parent's names.

[Davy C]

If you're implying a professor at a public university is being fired for what they write on a blog, that sounds like a blatant First Amendment violation.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Any thoughts about a professor who repeatedly uses racial slurs in classrooms?

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

You are pretty much required to use slurs if the course is about teaching what are racial slurs and the harm they cause.

[MollyGodiva]

Well the MAGAs know about it now. My guess is they will be objecting to everything in no time.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Meaning that if conservatives ran the schools with conservative agendas, progressives would meekly go along with it?

[Sarcastr0]

Meaning the conservative agenda has become anti-school these days.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Oh, home schooling is anti-schooling?

Gosh, sorry your desired agenda is not supported by people you don't like.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, anti school as an institution.

But also anti-intellectual.

My agenda is that I think education should be treated as the public good it is; that this idea has become a partisan hot-button is the right really showing it's paranoid ass.

[Rossami]

30 years in Minnesota - and you think they didn't already know about it? Your pointless fear-mongering in defiance of observed evidence is noted.

[Ed Grinberg]

Way ahead of you. My wife and I are homeschooling our kids.

[Randal]

This seems essentially good. Basically, a home-school (or even private school) sliding scale. More flexibility is practically always better, no?

[Jonathansingletary]

This seems like one of those statutes that most people, including parents and school administrators, don't know about, so rarely gets utilized.

[avb]

I went to high schooll in MN a few years after that. It was known by most people at my school.

[John F. Carr]

Reminds me of a student in Massachusetts who got excused from reading stories that came from the Bible.

[Roger S]

If this were in my state, I would want to opt out of the LGBTQ classes, the Black history month classes, and the police-led drug classes.

[Longtobefree]

"School personnel may not impose an academic or other penalty upon a student merely for arranging alternative instruction under this section.

School personnel may evaluate and assess the quality of the student's work."

Reads like a textbook example of internal contradiction.

[darkknight9]

I’m not certain if all districts have this but MN ISD 834 has a homeschool coordinator that also helps arrange alt subject accommodations and paperwork for when its parents (etc.) doing the teaching.

Its also anything goes for subject, teaching method, etc.

People saying that parents will be up in arms now should know that parents have had 30 years of “If you don’t like what we’re doing, do it yourself” to deal with. LOTS of parents aren’t willing to make that commitment. And the ones that do get to do it, can do it quietly, without controversy, and with a small amount of funds from the state.

[Lawman45]

I live in Minneapolis. Muslim parents are usinng it now to prevent sex education of their children.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/minnesota-school-district-allows-parents-to-opt-out-of-lgbt-books.html

[avb]

That was its original intent. There were some controversies about mandatory sex education at the time.

[Zil]

I too live in Minneapolis, am an inner city teacher, have had students of all cultures. I trust that most Muslim parents will teach their own version of sex education as long as they are financially stable enough to have a conversation with their children and not stuck working long shifts in some warehouse situation. The chance for parents to have a conversation with their children is actually more dependent on affordable housing these days.
However, there are highly generous, loving, capable people coming with more finances who are being rejected because of their orientation or culture due to this law. I frequently advise my new-to-culture students to keep their culture available only to other students who actually show interest in who they really are. These students deserve love and acceptance and should not be wasting their pearls of love on those who refuse to become multi- culturally respectful or friendly in a genuine way.
In other words, this law permits students coming from fundamentalist or MAGA families, to walk out of class when another student reveals to the class that they are from an immigrant culture or LGPTQ+ identity. Such an abandonment experienc enforces traumatic rejection and anxiety for these students who are what they are, seek social acceptance, and are not at fault.