‘We’re outing our youngsters’: WA Senator with nearly 40 years in law enforcement urges ‘no’ vote on Parents Bill of Rights

Washington voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to approve IL26-001, which would restore the original text of the Parents Bill of Rights. The measure would give parents broad access to nearly everything a school keeps about their child, including medical records, mental health counseling records, and other student-specific documents.

Washington State Senator John Lovick told “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio that the measure goes too far and could put abused children in danger.

“Can you imagine a kid going to school having been abused by a parent and knowing that that parent has access to their record, would know where they are, would know what their conversations have been with school personnel?” Lovick said. “We’re outing our youngsters, and that’s just totally unnecessary.”

Lovick spent nearly four decades in law enforcement, serving 31 years with the Washington State Patrol, earning Trooper of the Year honors, and later serving as Snohomish County Sheriff. He believes the initiative weakens the very protections it claims to strengthen.

“It actually weakens parents’ rights by removing language that is in current law, which requires schools to immediately notify a parent that a child was the victim of a crime, and that’s just uncalled for,” Lovick said. “And I’ll also say this: it removes school records protection from child abuse victims. It forces schools to release records to parents even if that parent is charged with assaulting that child.”

He gave a blunt example of what the initiative would allow.

“A father — and I hate to use the term father — could have assaulted a child, and he would be able to go to that school and access that child’s records,” Lovick said. “That’s just unnecessary. That’s just wrong. That’s right out of a Louisiana law, and we should not allow that to happen.”

The backstory on the Parents Bill of Rights

In 2024, the legislature passed the original Parents Bill of Rights, known as Initiative 2081, with bipartisan and nearly unanimous support. The Democratic-controlled House and Senate adopted it as law without sending it to a statewide vote.

In 2025, Democrats passed HB 1296, which modified parts of the initiative, including extending the records request timeline from 10 business days to the federal standard of 45 days and adding privacy protections for students’ mental health records. Initiative 001 would roll those changes back.

Gee pushes both sides

Gee asked whether there are legitimate cases where schools have withheld information from good parents who absolutely should have known what was happening.

“I’m sure that if we go back, there will probably be some legitimate situations where that maybe has happened,” Lovick acknowledged. “I don’t know of any myself. But we have a policy, a law in place that is working well, and we’re trying to create a problem when there’s no problem there.”

Gee’s frustration is that the debate always gets pulled to extremes.

“It’s always used with extremes,” Gee said. “It would be, ‘Oh, so schools know better than parents?’ We’ve heard that. Or it’s, ‘Schools have all the control.’ It always becomes extreme.”

Lovick pointed out the common-sense approach is simple. Read the initiative and look at the facts.

“The facts are this: this is going to require, instead of a 45-day period for producing the records, it’s going to require an arbitrary change to produce these records in 10 days,” he said. “The fact of the matter is this is going to cost school districts money that could be spent educating students, totally unnecessary.”

Angela raises trafficking concerns

Angela drew on her experience as a reporter to back Lovick’s child safety concerns.

“I can tell you as a reporter who has spent years interviewing folks, I have seen some really awful parent situations,” Angela said. “I interviewed two whose parents sold them to people. Sex trafficking. And if you don’t have any safe place to go to tell someone without maybe that person who’s your trafficker finding out, that does concern me.”

Lovick said that is exactly why schools must remain a safe space.

“I grew up in Louisiana, and it didn’t matter what went on in that community,” Lovick said. “Two places we felt extremely safe, because you know you could get your house burned down, you could get your house firebombed, but school and church were very safe places. And we’re taking that safe space away from our youngsters.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.