Practice Makes Parent

Guest (Female): ChatGPT and AI can offer you ideas and attempt to give you answers, but it can't listen with compassion, pray with you, or guide you with wisdom shaped by faith. When life feels overwhelming, real human connection matters. At Focus on the Family, we believe in the power of professional help and biblical wisdom.

That's why we offer a free confidential consultation with a caring Christian counselor to walk with you through life's struggles. Whether you're navigating challenges in marriage, parenting, anxiety, grief, or something else, our counselors are here to help. If you're hurting, don't wait. Hope is real and healing begins with a conversation. Request your free confidential consultation today. Call 1-800-A-FAMILY, that's 1-800-232-6459, or visit focusonthefamily.com/gethelp.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Hi and welcome to Practice Makes Parent where we understand it's not about perfection but about transformation. I'm Dr. Danny Huerta, and this is a special edition of the show. A recent US Supreme Court decision related to education may affect your family, so we wanted to talk about it as soon as we could.

As you can tell, Rebecca St. James is not joining us for this edition, but she'll be back next week. These rulings involve parental rights, so it's so important for you to be informed before the school starts. It's about boys participating in girls' sports, parental notification, and digital safety. After today, we hope that you are equipped and confident to know what is happening and also to approach the school if you need to on concerns you have.

As the school year starts, we just want you to know what your game plan is on these topics. We have Jeff Johnston, an analyst here at Focus on the Family who stays on top of these issues. Thank you for being on the show with me today, Jeff.

Jeff Johnston: Hey, Danny. Thanks for having me here. I appreciate it.

Dr. Danny Huerta: It's exciting to tackle this topic. Before we go into the legal side of things and go into all the details, I was a school social worker for a few years in the public school system. There were a lot of fantastic teachers in the school system, a lot of Christian teachers, and a lot of Christian administrators. This is not going to be a show bashing public schools.

This is a show creating an awareness of what's happening in a lot of the public school system, knowing there are a lot of life-giving people, teachers, and administrators in there trying to create change in their positions and trying to do the best they can, sometimes bound by the system itself.

I've had a sister and a mom as teachers, and other family members that continue to be teachers in the public school system now, and friends as well. Know as you're listening to this show, it's not about how we can bash public school systems and tell everybody to go to homeschooling. It's really about the options for you as parents in the education space. We just need you to really lean into and think about what is happening in the public school system so you go in informed and you also are able to advocate for your kids.

Jeff, for a parent who hasn't been following the news lately, especially over summertime, what actually happened in the Supreme Court that needs to be on parents' radar as they start the school year?

Jeff Johnston: First, if I can emphasize what you just said about good teachers, I taught 30 years ago in a different life. My son's a teacher here in Colorado Springs. He teaches Latin and English. They had some great teachers in school and great administrators who were very supportive. He loves the kids, loves his subject, and is doing a good job. Most teachers I think are that way.

But there are state laws and school board decisions, all kinds of things that impact what a teacher can bring into the classroom. Parents have to be aware of those and stay connected with their children's teachers. They need to know who they are and have a connection with them. It takes time and intentionality, but it's very important.

As far as the Supreme Court goes, I'm going to back up one year. Last year, 2025, there was a really big decision that came down. It had to do with a school district in Maryland that was bringing in books for kindergarten through fifth graders that were teaching materials that were inappropriate. Some of the kindergarten and first grade books were about LGBT issues. There was one book for second graders that was all about intersectionality.

That is the idea that you have all these different identities inside you. Some of them make you an oppressor and some of them make you oppressed. It comes out of critical race theory, which came out of Marxism. It is this ideology that says the whole world is set up against each other with oppressors and oppressed. If you're oppressed, you're a victim. They believe that these are endless and you can never really move out of being a victim, which is not a good lesson to teach.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: The way they're teaching it is creating the victim to become the oppressor. It is doing exactly what they're saying not to do and they're creating that kind of setup.

Jeff Johnston: Exactly. It sets students against each other. They had these books in school and a group of parents, some were Muslim, some were Jewish, and some were Christian, objected. They said these books violate my religious faith and they violate what I'm trying to teach my children.

It went all the way to the Supreme Court. The case was Mahmoud v. Taylor. The court said parents have the right to bring up their children. It is a constitutional right that they've affirmed over and over again. It actually predates the Constitution. Parents have the right to parent their kids.

They said to the school district that you're violating these parents' religious freedom, their First Amendment rights. You have to allow parents to opt out of material that directly opposes what they're trying to teach their children in terms of their faith. That was a really big decision from 2025.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: Let's stop there for a second. Let's say a parent runs into that issue at the school this year, right at the beginning. Material that goes directly against our faith has been accessed or recommended. What's an initial step to go towards that specific issue?

Jeff Johnston: There are a couple of things you can do. First, as I mentioned, you can go talk to the teacher. You can say, "I realized that you're teaching this book and my faith opposes some of the ideas in this book. They're against my religious beliefs, and I want to know if I can opt my child out of participating in reading these books." You have to ask for an opt-out usually.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: What if the teacher says no, that this is required reading and there's nothing wrong with it?

Jeff Johnston: Well, you might want to remind the teacher about this decision, Mahmoud v. Taylor, that protects parents' religious freedom. I write about this for the Daily Citizen, Focus on the Family's culture and policy outlet. You can just do a search at the Daily Citizen for Mahmoud and the case will come up. You'll find a couple of different news stories about it.

Then you're prepared with what the case is about. It will have links to the actual Supreme Court case, which will be long and boring. Sometimes these are 90 to 150 pages. But then there are also legal groups that support parents' rights. You have groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, the Thomas More Society, the Beckett Fund, and First Liberty. They work to protect parents' rights in school.

A lot of those groups now have opt-out forms that you can bring to the teacher and say that you have the right because of this decision and because it violates your religious freedom to opt your child out. You can also ask if the school has forms. If the teacher doesn't respond well, first take some notes. Write down what happened and then the next level would be the administration.

If you need to, you can contact one of these legal aid groups. A lot of times they'll just write a letter saying there was this decision and the parent has the right. You also want to talk to the teacher about the specific issues that violate what you're trying to teach your children. You want to get those from the books or the curriculum or the supplemental materials that a teacher might bring in. You want to document what you're talking about and you don't want to go in like this is a fight.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: That's key, Jeff. Being life-giving, coming in with confidence and you're advocating, but with calmness, patience, and love towards the person.

Jeff Johnston: There was this whole move a few years back about confronting people. This isn't confronting somebody. It's just talking to them and having a discussion. If you're nervous about this, maybe talk to another parent and bring them in with you, someone who has the same faith you do or a different faith but they have the same religious objections to what's being taught.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: Jeff, since we have limited time, let's tackle some of the other ones and go deeper into some of these. One of them is for parents to be able to have the right to know what's happening with their kids and what's being told to them in the school. Talk about that.

Jeff Johnston: A lot of states and state boards of education have laws or guidelines where they say the students have privacy rights. They'll say on some key issues, like if your child is struggling with sexual identity confusion, mental health issues, or even pregnancy-related issues, schools don't have to talk to you, the parent, about these issues.

There was a really important case that didn't have a full hearing and it's still working through the courts, but the Supreme Court made a really strong statement. Schools in California were hiding children's struggles with their sexual identity from parents. They were saying they don't have to notify you if your child is confused or wants to be a boy.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: That immediately sets an us versus them mentality for the child. The family system is so important in any kind of mental health issue or any issue of confusion that the child may have. You need to take that into consideration within the family system.

When I was a social worker and I pulled kids out of a classroom setting, if that was part of their IEP or part of a 504 plan or if a teacher had a concern, I would need to have some type of permission from a parent and notify them. It's so important for parents to be in the know and to also get some help as this child is getting some help. If we're truly trying to help a child, we have to involve the family system. If there are safety issues, we need to go towards that and help the child find safety, but if it's a communication thing and there's disagreement on beliefs, we as adults need to notify parents what's going to be happening and have them be a part of the decision-making and conversation around it.

Jeff Johnston: Exactly. The California law set up teachers versus parents. In fact, it told the teachers and the administrators that they cannot tell the parents unless the child wants them to. They could get in trouble or lose their job for that. A couple of teachers sued. One of them, her last name is Mirabelli. I wrote about this for the Daily Citizen. They were in Southern California and they said they were being told to lie to parents or to withhold information.

Then parents jumped on the lawsuit. The Supreme Court said this is a fundamental right for parents to direct their children's upbringing, for them to know what's going on with their children, and you're violating that right. They sent the case back down to the lower courts with very specific instructions about how to deal with it and that this is a constitutional issue. They worked to protect parents' rights.

There's a lot of states, state school boards, and school districts that have these policies in place. One group lists about 23,000 schools that have policies in place where you have to hide information from the parent about a child's sexual identity confusion. All those are under threat now. This Supreme Court case will back up parents when they want to challenge those kinds of transgender policies.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: When you use the word challenge, what does that look like in a practical way for a parent if they're starting to think there's no transparency here? How do they step towards that without creating a formal complaint initially?

Jeff Johnston: Here I wouldn't necessarily start with a teacher. I would do some investigative work to find out what my school district's transgender policy is. Then I would go to the school administration first and the school board second and say this violates my parental rights.

They do this on the basis that they're protecting children's privacy, but they're protecting children from their parents, which is totally backwards. They're also saying they can keep secrets together, the school and the child. It sets parents against the school district. It's not a focus on what is healthy.

We see that translating to adult-child relationships, this cancel culture that was put into that. It's not about healthiness, it's about creating a division and we've seen that exponentially grow since COVID happened. There's an us versus them. This is one specifically that is fascinating for us as therapists to consider. How do we consider the family system as we're talking to an individual that comes in and discloses something that would make sense to talk through with the family system? It gets very complex in that setting with all the client rights that a person has. But this is different in the school itself. Parents need to be involved in their children's education.

Jeff Johnston: You could probably talk to them offline first. If there's no action taken, I would go to school board meetings and before I went to a school board meeting, I would talk to other parents about this and get some support because I know people who have been attacked by school board members and by the local community because they challenged some of these policies.

You want to have people praying for you. Again, I'm not trying to set this up like this is a huge fight. Hopefully, it'll get resolved quickly and easily lower down. They'll say you're right, this is unconstitutional, and we're going to have to change our policy. But sometimes they're still going by state laws. Just because the Supreme Court decides something doesn't change everything right away.

A lot of times this will take a while to play out. You don't want to be belligerent, but you do have to be courageous and you have to be wise in how you handle this. Again, there are plenty of Christian legal aid groups out there to help parents when they confront these issues in local schools.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: Name a couple that would be really good.

Jeff Johnston: First Liberty's a good one. Alliance Defending Freedom is a group that Focus on the Family's Dr. Dobson helped start. They have grown and been such a resource. They have worked to protect free speech, religious freedom, and parents' rights. These guys are on your side and they helped put this wonderful resource together. We use some of their materials in there and we reference them as well.

This is called the Equipping Parents for Back to School 2026. It's the third edition with a lot of updates. It's just 130-ish pages of wonderful resources and content. You talk about classrooms there, locker rooms, libraries. It's a resource that every parent needs to have if they have children in public school just to understand what is there, what can I be praying for, what can I advocate for. If you're a teacher, this would be a fantastic resource to understand what's happening legally and how to advocate for parents and for kids and for students just like those two teachers you mentioned.

We'll have that in the show notes. What's another update that parents need to be aware of?

Jeff Johnston: There was a really big decision that just came down in June about girls' sports. The court said that states can protect girls' sports from guys who believe they are girls, who struggle with transgender ideology. The case started when Idaho passed a law saying we're going to keep girls' sports just for girls and boys' sports for boys.

Then West Virginia passed a similar law. Our friends at Family Policy Alliance helped pass laws like this in almost 30 states, which were protecting girls' sports from boys who want to participate on the girls' team. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court and the court said boys and girls are different. Imagine that it took a ruling for that.

Justice Kavanaugh wrote the decision and he's actually coached high school sports, so he's familiar with this.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: I coached boys' basketball, middle school, and girls' middle school basketball. It was so different. At one point, it was a tough team we were playing and every single girl on the bench was crying. Then there was one that had gotten hurt and she was crying and I was going, what do I do here? Then they had social moments on the bench, whereas guys were totally intense. It was so different the whole experience. Both were super competitive, both were athletically talented, but they had different dynamics and different ways they handled stress and adversity and each other socially and in practice. It makes sense to keep them separate.

Jeff Johnston: It's really good that you mentioned that because we usually focus on athletic ability and how, especially after puberty, boys tend to be stronger, have bigger hearts, and heavier bones. But there are all these social aspects. When you put a boy on a girls' team, it messes that dynamic up. Girls are losing out on what should be a safe space for girls.

The court upheld those laws. Here's where it gets a little complicated. You have about 29 states that have these laws that protect girls' sports. You have another 20 or so that allow boys to play girls' sports. It didn't really touch those states yet, although there's a bunch of lawsuits making their way through the courts. This takes five to 10 years before it can even hit the Supreme Court.

This did send a really strong message to states. Some of them have already said they are going to keep doing what they do because it's the law in their state and that decision doesn't affect them. Places like Colorado, California, and Illinois, you need to know what the laws are in your state if your daughter's going to be on a girls' team. Then you need to know what's happening at the local school and at the school district level.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: Let's say in those 20 states where it's currently legal to have that and there are lawsuits going up the chain. How does a parent coach their daughter in that type of scenario where there's a boy going into a locker room or into the travel with them? What's a good way to coach a daughter who is confused or maybe frustrated with it? How does a parent help support that?

Jeff Johnston: It's not easy, but you have to talk to your kids about these issues. That's where you talked about being open and honest with each other and not having a school jump in and break those parent-child relationships. If it's happening with your daughter, there are some local school districts around us where they allow boys into girls' locker rooms. They've had boys stay in hotel rooms when they're traveling together with a girl.

Sometimes they don't tell the girl, sometimes the parents don't find out until afterwards. That's where you're going to need to step in and say I'm here to protect you. We need girl dads to step up to the plate and say I'm with you, I'm for you. Again, that's where you go talk to the administration. You go up the chain, administration, school board.

Again, you might have to pull in legal aid groups to help out and write letters saying this is what the Supreme Court decided. Title IX mandates that you not discriminate against girls on the basis of their sex and what these schools are doing is discriminating against them. Another thing you can do if you want to take it even higher, the Department of Justice and the Department of Education both have places online where you can file official complaints.

Those two agencies are now investigating school districts for their policies when they're violating Title IX by letting a boy on a girls' team or a boy into girls' private spaces. Schools can lose funding, states can lose funding. The federal government provides about 10% of school funding, but that can be a lot for a local school district. If they get hit with a lawsuit from the federal government or from another group, it's even more expensive. Most schools want to avoid that, so you can file official complaints at that level if you need to.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: 10 years ago, 20 years ago, who would have thought we would be in this space talking about this? When I played high school sports, we'd go watch the girls' sports and we'd cheer them on, they'd cheer us on. I just don't see where it makes sense that we have either girls participating in boys' sports or boys in girls' sports.

When you think about coed sports in college, it's just for fun and it's very much a social type thing. But when you're thinking competition, body structure's different. We just have to know that that's unfair to a girl who is wanting to participate, but also just the safety issue is rampant right there. It just doesn't make sense when we don't have God as a centerpiece.

Proverbs 2 says, "My son, if you receive my word and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding." This is about us being attentive to wisdom and inclining our heart to understanding. That's what the parents need to do as we step into conversations not only with school administrators but also with our kids.

Let's talk about these issues. This is a wonderful book to have public policy conversations about what's happening in the public school system. How does this translate to society? How does this translate to families? How does this translate to the health of an individual psychologically? As parents guide this conversation with your kids, is there anything else that you would want parents to know as an update before school starts?

Jeff Johnston: Just back to the Title IX and the girls' sports ruling. This also protects boys. There's a school district in Northern Virginia where three boys were in the locker room and there was a girl in there with her camera on, her phone camera, and she was videotaping them. They were talking in the locker room about why is this girl in here and the school went after them.

The school district went after the boys and they got suspended for talking about this transgender-identified girl in the locker room. Of course, that case has gone to court and the boys have won a settlement, but it shouldn't have to be that way. We shouldn't need five years of court cases to protect our children.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: Jeff, we're so thankful that you've brought us this information today. What do you want to be sure parents check out in the Equipping Parents for Back to School download resource?

Jeff Johnston: One very big issue is electronic devices, the internet, and AI. I'm older. I don't even understand half of this stuff. I like books and paper. But we have friends at a group called the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, NCOSE. They publish a Dirty Dozen list each year and these are businesses that are promoting pornography or they're making money off pornography or sex trafficking in some way.

This year they listed a ton of electronic resources, Chromebook, the Android operating system, the Apple's App Store, Grok, TikTok, X, Steam, and Roblox. All of these have inroads towards pornography or trafficking or both. Many of these are things that schools use for internet connections or they give kids Chromebooks or they have access to the App Store on their phone.

We have a whole section where we've updated some of this and let people know they need to watch what's going on in this arena. You need to be better educated than I am about this. Cell phones are another issue there. There's a lot of schools that are limiting cell phones during school hours. There's some positive movement and then also there's some things that parents want to know about so they can watch what's happening in their school and protect their children.

Dr. Danny_Huerta: It's a brand new school year. Equipping Parents for Back to School 2026, be sure to download that today. You'll want that resource. This isn't about being scared or fearful. It's about being informed and then taking steps towards that, having conversations in your home, conversations with administrators, maybe even in your small group. What do you guys do with this and about this in your own community, in your own schools? It's not an us versus them. Let's be life-giving wherever we go and also be wise as we steward all that.

Bring Your Bible to School Day is right around the corner. You want to participate in that. That is a fantastic thing that started several years ago with our public policy team and then became a parenting thing where you could take your kids to school and have them bring their Bible to school or encouraging your teens to do that or even your young adults. It's the first Thursday in October, that's October 1st this year. You don't want to miss that.

We had 1.5 million people that participated this last year. We want to get to 2 million and pass that and beat our records each year. It's a good way to form community, to articulate that I believe in God's word, and having your kids stand up courageously and letting others know that they have a faith in Christ. Bring Your Bible to School Day, check that out. Make sure you sign up so that you're counted. Let us know how many you're going to invite to the event. It's right after See You at the Pole. Prayer, then reading God's word, and then being life-giving and talking about God's word with your friends.

Jeff, thanks for being on the show with us. Next week we'll be talking about teaching your kids about their Christian worldview at home and at school with guest Billy Hutchinson from the Colson Center. I'm Dr. Danny Huerta for Practice Makes Parent. Glad you've been with us today.

Guest (Female): ChatGPT and AI can offer you ideas and attempt to give you answers, but it can't listen with compassion, pray with you, or guide you with wisdom shaped by faith. When life feels overwhelming, real human connection matters. At Focus on the Family, we believe in the power of professional help and biblical wisdom.

That's why we offer a free confidential consultation with a caring Christian counselor to walk with you through life's struggles. Whether you're navigating challenges in marriage, parenting, anxiety, grief, or something else, our counselors are here to help. If you're hurting, don't wait. Hope is real and healing begins with a conversation. Request your free confidential consultation today. Call 1-800-A-FAMILY, that's 1-800-232-6459, or visit focusonthefamily.com/gethelp.