California court blocks schools from notifying parents of name, pronoun changes

California’s attorney general said he won a court order temporarily blocking a school district from informing parents when students ask to change their name or pronoun.

The ruling also blocks, for now, the Chino Valley Unified School District’s policy requiring parents to be told if their student asks to use facilities or participates in programs that don’t align with their sex on official records.

The ruling by a state judge in San Bernardino comes a week after California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, filed the state’s first lawsuit of its kind against the school district. A hearing on a ruling to block the policy indefinitely is scheduled for next month. The ruling concerns the Chino Valley Unified School District, located about 35 miles (60 kilometres) east of Los Angeles.

Disputes over school disclosure policies are part of a broader nationwide controversy over students and gender identity that has included extensive litigation over access for transgender youths to bathrooms and sports teams.

The decision “rightfully upholds the state rights of our LGBTQ student community and protects kids from harm by immediately halting the board’s forced outing policy,” Bonta said in a statement.

Andrea Johnston, a spokeswoman for Chino Valley Unified School District, said in an emailed statement that school staff “respects the temporary ruling to suspend implementation of certain portions “ of the parent notification policy. The district “will continue to fulfill its purpose of creating and maintaining a collaborative relationship between school and home,” she said.

The case is California v. Chino Valley Unified School District, CIV-SB-2317301, California Superior Court in the County of San Bernardino.