It also requires schools to notify parents if schools help a child transition to a different gender, among other things, or any additional monitoring for their “mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being,” language expected to have a significant effect on LGBTQ student support guides that some districts use as a resource for schools and families to help support LGBTQ students and offer recommendations on how to support students to teachers. The legislation prohibits teachers from leading classroom instruction on gender identity or sexual orientation for students in kindergarten through third grade and bans such lessons for older students unless they are “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.” “I don’t know if that’s the goal of the bill, but it’s very important we do have some clarity for parents and for the schools.”
“What it does create is a lot of divisiveness, and it also creates a lack of clarity completely with this bill,” Nadia Combs, who chairs Hillsborough County’s school board, said at a recent school board meeting. The newly minted law, which has caused an uproar across the nation and has led to a high-profile fight between DeSantis and The Walt Disney Co., is set to go into effect July 1 and is being challenged in federal court.
