Initiative 2081 (jeopardizing student privacy) gets certified

The third of six sub­mit­ted ini­tia­tives to the 2024 Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture spon­sored by Repub­li­can State Par­ty Chair Jim Walsh and fund­ed by right wing mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Bri­an Hey­wood was cer­ti­fied today, which means it is des­tined for the Novem­ber 2024 bal­lot for approval or rejec­tion by voters.

Ini­tia­tive 2081 would under­mine the abil­i­ty of youth to access gen­der affirm­ing and repro­duc­tive care ser­vices through their schools, jeop­ar­diz­ing care­ful­ly craft­ed safe har­bor poli­cies. It is an attempt to bring the right wing’s edu­ca­tion cul­ture wars to Wash­ing­ton, and would erode the trust­ed rela­tion­ships that exist between stu­dents, their teach­ers, and their health­care providers.

Accord­ing to the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Divi­sion, 28,527 pages of sig­na­tures were received for I‑2081, con­tain­ing 449,646  lines.

324,516 valid sig­na­tures are cur­rent­ly required to qual­i­fy a statewide initiative.

Ini­tia­tive 2081 had a suf­fi­cient cush­ion of extra sig­na­tures to qual­i­fy for a ran­dom sam­ple check as allowed by state law, which con­sist­ed of 13,490 signatures.

Of those, 10,825 were accept­ed and 2,665 were reviewed. 2,529 sig­na­tures were deter­mined to be invalid, and twen­ty-four were deter­mined to be duplicate.

Sec­re­tary Hobbs today trans­mit­ted a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion mes­sage to the Leg­is­la­ture affixed with the state seal, advis­ing of I‑2081’s qualification.

Leg­isla­tive staff have giv­en I‑2081 its own bill-style page on leg.wa.gov.

The bal­lot title for I‑2081 is as follows:

Ini­tia­tive Mea­sure No. 2081 con­cerns parental rights relat­ing to their children’s pub­lic school education.

This mea­sure would pro­vide cer­tain rights to par­ents and guardians of pub­lic-school chil­dren, includ­ing rights to review instruc­tion­al mate­ri­als, inspect records, receive cer­tain noti­fi­ca­tions, and opt out of cer­tain activ­i­ties, like sex­u­al-health education.

Should this mea­sure be enact­ed into law? Yes [ ] No [ ]

The sum­ma­ry is as follows:

This mea­sure would allow par­ents and guardians of pub­lic-school chil­dren to review instruc­tion­al mate­ri­als and inspect stu­dent records, includ­ing health and dis­ci­pli­nary records, upon request. It would require pub­lic schools to pro­vide par­ents and guardians with cer­tain noti­fi­ca­tions, includ­ing about med­ical ser­vices giv­en and when stu­dents are tak­en off cam­pus; access to cal­en­dars and cer­tain poli­cies; and writ­ten notice and oppor­tu­ni­ties to opt stu­dents out of com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al-health edu­ca­tion and answer­ing cer­tain sur­veys or assignments.

Leg­is­la­tors have three choic­es as to how to respond to I‑2081:

• Do noth­ing, in which case it goes to voters
• Adopt the mea­sure into law
• Send it to the Novem­ber 2024 bal­lot with an alternative

NPI oppos­es Ini­tia­tive 2081 and is work­ing for the mea­sure’s defeat. If you’d like to help oppose I‑2081 and its brethren, you can donate to Stop Greed here.

“The Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture has tak­en impor­tant steps in recent years to pre­vent deaths and injuries result­ing from unnec­es­sary high-speed police pur­suits, and to ensure that all stu­dents feel safe in Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic schools,” the ACLU of Wash­ing­ton not­ed last year in a state­ment oppos­ing I‑2081. “Let’s not allow reac­tionary forces to roll back this progress for civ­il lib­er­ties and civ­il rights.”

We agree and will be work­ing to ensure I‑2081 does not harm Wash­ing­ton youth.