California parents have all summer to act, and it only takes about two minutes to do it.
For decades, California parents heard the same answer from their children’s schools: you may opt out of sex education, and nothing else. Lessons on gender identity, sexual orientation, and so-called “inclusive” storybooks were off limits to objection. Parents who raised concerns were often ignored, or told outright they had no say.
That era is ending. A string of recent court decisions has restored what parents never should have lost: the right to direct their own children’s moral and religious upbringing. Optoutca.org, one of the organizations featured on California Family Council’s Parental Rights Resources page, is now leading a statewide Summer Blitz to help every California parent use that right before the first day of school.
The Court Rulings That Changed Everything
Four decisions, in less than a year, rebuilt the legal ground parents stand on.
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that when a parent holds a sincere religious or moral objection to a school lesson, the First Amendment requires the school to give notice and a real opportunity to opt out. The ruling reaches LGBTQ storybooks, gender ideology curriculum, and any material that substantially interferes with a child’s religious development. Read more here.
In Mirabelli v. Bonta, the Supreme Court held that California’s policy of hiding a child’s gender transition from parents likely violates both the Free Exercise Clause and the Due Process Clause. The Court said plainly that parents, not government bureaucrats, hold constitutional authority over their children’s upbringing. Read more here.
Building on that ruling, the Ninth Circuit blocked key provisions of AB 1955, California’s gender secrecy law, in City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom. The panel wrote that “in light of Mirabelli, AB 1955 thus forbids the mandatory policies that the Constitution requires.” Parents, the court affirmed, have a right to know. Read more here.
And California’s PRISM teacher training program, built to push gender ideology into classrooms statewide, has been unraveling under the weight of these same rulings. Read more here.
California Family Council walked parents and teachers through what all of this means in a recent webinar, Rights Restored: What Recent Court Decisions Mean for Parents & Teachers, & What to Do Next.
More Than LGBTQ Lessons
Most parents have heard by now that they can opt their children out of LGBTQ curriculum. Far fewer realize how much further that right now extends. Under Mahmoud and California’s existing Education Code, parents can formally remove their children from:
- Comprehensive sex education and health instruction that conflicts with the family’s faith.
- Critical Race Theory lessons and materials that teach children to judge themselves or others by race.
- DEI programming and trainings woven into curriculum, assemblies, or classroom activities.
- “Inclusive” storybooks and other materials that conflict with a family’s beliefs about sexuality, marriage, or gender.
- Anonymous surveys and questionnaires that probe a child’s beliefs, practices, or family life around sex, morality, or religion.
- Any material, of any kind, that substantially interferes with a child’s religious development or conflicts with the parents’ religious training and moral convictions.
This is not a narrow carve-out for one controversial topic. It is a broad, constitutionally grounded right to direct a child’s moral and religious formation, and it covers far more of the school day than most parents have been told.
Education, Not Indoctrination
The courts have spoken. Now it is up to parents to act, and Opt Out CA has made that simple.
Step 1: Visit OptOutCA.org. Step 2: Complete the short online questionnaire. Step 3: Electronically sign your personalized Opt Out Notice. Step 4: Your notice is delivered automatically to your child’s principal and superintendent, with a copy emailed to you for your records.
Total time: less than two minutes. No paperwork. No office visit. No confrontation at the front desk.
“Rights Not Used Are Rights That Get Taken Away”
Greg Burt, Vice President of California Family Council, says the opt-out window is not something parents can set once and forget.
“These rights were just won in court, and rights that sit unused have a way of disappearing again,” Burt said. “This is not a one-time form. Every Christian parent in California should be filing a fresh Opt Out Notice every single year, before every school year starts. If we stop showing up, Sacramento will assume we stopped caring, and they will move right back in.”
Burt also pointed to what could happen if the practice spread across entire communities.
“Picture what happens to a school district if every Christian family on that campus files an Opt Out Notice, every year, without fail,” Burt said. “A superintendent who sees hundreds of signed notices land on his desk in one week learns something no lawsuit can teach him: parents are watching, parents are organized, and parents are not going anywhere. That kind of quiet, consistent obedience changes a district faster than any protest.
“Jesus told His followers to be salt and light. Salt does not shout, it preserves and it flavors everything around it. Light does not have to fight the darkness, it simply refuses to go out. Filling out this form every year is a small, faithful act, but small, faithful acts done together by thousands of families are exactly how salt and light change a culture. This is our summer to do it.”
Join the Statewide Summer Blitz
Thousands of California families are completing their Opt Out Notices this summer. California Family Council is asking every parent, pastor, and grandparent in the state to help spread the word.
- Share the “Education Not Indoctrination” flyer with family and friends.
- Forward it through your church or community organization.
- Post it on social media.
- Encourage every California parent you know to take the two minutes before August.
Parents, not government bureaucracies, are the primary decision-makers for their children. For years, the law made that hard to exercise in California. Now the courts have cleared the way. The only thing left is to walk through the door.
Visit www.optoutca.org today.
Opt Out CA is one of several legally prepared opt-out options California Family Council highlights on its Parental Rights Resources page. Whichever organization’s form a family chooses, the choice belongs to the parent. What matters is that every California family, in every district, has a signed notice on file before the year begins.
