This is in reference to birth control being handed out to middle school kids in Maine.

My wife and I put our child in public school for two weeks. The principal got up and said "while your kids are here, we are their mommies". That comment made my skin crawl BUT she is right. They ensure they eat. They make sure they go to the bathroom. They have a nurse on staff to deal with cuts and bruises. They deal with psychological issues. In some places they hand out inappropriate sex surveys and contraceptives and this is all within the law, or so it seems. They assume the role of parent during that time frame and we, by virtue of handing our children over to them relinquish those rights during that time frame. For the law to extend our parental rights is to invent rights that are not in the constitution. It would become a logistical nightmare for the public school system to have to police dictations from the parents on every matter that they consider their right."You cannot teach my kids evolution" ... "You cannot teach my kids about sex" ... "You MUST teach my kids about sex" .. some parents will lose those battles. You can be involved but ultimately your control on some matters is handed over to committees, PTA groups and the system.

Consider the argued right in the Nov 2005 "sex survey" case “to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs”

The Ninth Circuits ruling contains the following conclusion

.... We conclude only that the parents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the public schools from providing information on that subject to their students in any forum or manner they select.

Now I know the 9th circuit being who they are is easy to dismiss but what shocked me about this case was strong commentary from the other side of the political aisle that could find no real hole in the decision. In fact many people calling themselves "strict constitutionalists" called it the right decision. Their beef was with the 9th circuits selective application of their reasoning.

The court even went through the unusual trouble of rewording the decision to eliminate some of their more extreme statements knowing they have a good chance, should this come before the SC, of standing and becoming precedent for future rulings along these lines. I don't see this as an obscure matter of if. I see it as a matter of when.

Read what Amy Welborn has on her site ...
That 9th Circuit Decision The best comments from that time frame that helped me were

Again, I think that he reaches the right decision based on the law, but I also think that he is disingenuous when he states that the court makes this decision based on law rather than policy preferences. Based on the rank inconsistency in Judge Reinhardt's Substantive Due Process jurisprudence, the only reasonable conclusion is that his decision was predicated specifically on his liberal policy preferences.

I suspect that if this ruling came from the 5th Circuit, the initial reaction here would have been somewhat different.

That being said, I think the court ruled correctly, and, I might add, conservatives should applaud the resistance by the court to once again expand these unwritten rights to privacy. Should schools notify parents when these subjects are being taught? Yes, but it's not unconstitutional if they don't. Vote out the school board members, or explore other options to prevent this from happening again.

This case should be used by conservatives as Exhibit A in the case for vouchers. Parents should be able to opt out of schools where the administration clearly don't care what parents think.

Ultimately we hold the highest right and that is to get your kids out of public schools that do not abide by the wishes of parents. I think that it is of vital importance for parents to understand that their rights *in* the public school system are not as supreme as they think they are.