WaPo Columnist: Why Montgomery County should listen to its parents

[Anonymous]

Marc Fisher, a Washington Post columnist, wrote about the LGBTQ ELA Books opt-out case that the Supreme Court decided on this year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/30/public-schools-sexuality-parents-montgomery-county/

In his column, he rightly pointed out his own hypocrisy after initially judging the parents requesting opt-outs as he decided to opt his kids out of viewing the film "Life Is Beautiful" because he felt it did not accurately depict the Holocaust.

He also reached out to MCPS to get clarity on how it would structure the opt-out options for parents in the upcoming school year and more importantly rebuild the trust it has broken with the opt-out parents, and in true MCPS fashion they stiff-armed him, declined to give substantive specifics and threw word salad at him. I thought his piece struck a thoughtful and accurate balance that MCPS needs to strike and failed to strike, which led to the unfortunate Supreme Court case.

I asked to speak with the MCPS officials deciding how schools will comply with the court’s ruling this fall. That request was denied. The school system’s spokeswoman, Liliana Lopez, offered this statement: “We are working to determine next steps in order to meet the expectations of the Court’s ruling and remain true to our shared values of learning, relationships, respect, excellence and equity.” She said MCPS will update families and staffers before school starts.

Persak hasn’t heard from his daughters’ school. He expects MCPS to, as his lawyer put it, “rebuild trust with parents whom they slandered.” (At least one Montgomery County elected official said pro-opt-out parents were on the same side as “white supremacists and outright bigots.”)

I hope the school system reaches out to parents who want to opt their kids out of lessons on sexuality. And I hope the county stands firm against those who would expand parents’ roles in choosing books and lessons. The last thing the county needs is the kind of cleansing of bookshelves now happening in nearby Virginia, where school boards have removed 223 books from libraries in the past five years.

Educators deserve to decide how best to achieve society’s goals in the classroom. And parents get to push back with their votes and, ultimately, by asserting their authority to raise their children as they see fit. All of this is inherently contradictory — and that’s exactly as it should be. The beauty of the system lies in the tension between opposing ideas.

I doubt MCPS will listen but let's see.

[Anonymous]

This is a total "own goal" that MCPS could and should have avoided.

[Anonymous]

Ugh. The Persaks can send their kids to Catholic school on their own dime if they find the concept of a book being read to their child about a same sex mommy and daddy to be so offensive.

[Anonymous]

Soon it will soon be like the deep South, where some schools teach intelligent design in HS science classes because parents want to opt out from having their kids learn about evolution.

Give me that old time religion!

[Anonymous]

When I lived in the deep south, parents objected to teaching about recycling in school because, and I quote "God put us here to use up everything on earth and then for us to go to heaven when we are finished."

You would be amazed at what people think you shouldn't learn because of religion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh. The Persaks can send their kids to Catholic school on their own dime if they find the concept of a book being read to their child about a same sex mommy and daddy to be so offensive.

So you didn't bother to engage with the columnist's own decision to opt his kid out of a classroom viewing of "It's A Beautiful Life"?

The point of the piece and this discussion thread is not that you have to agree with that particular family's decision to opt out on that specific, it's the idea of the tension between what parents think is best and what the education system believes is best and how systems and communities should respond when there's disagreement between the two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh. The Persaks can send their kids to Catholic school on their own dime if they find the concept of a book being read to their child about a same sex mommy and daddy to be so offensive.

So you didn't bother to engage with the columnist's own decision to opt his kid out of a classroom viewing of "It's A Beautiful Life"?

The point of the piece and this discussion thread is not that you have to agree with that particular family's decision to opt out on that specific, it's the idea of the tension between what parents think is best and what the education system believes is best and how systems and communities should respond when there's disagreement between the two.

"Life is Beautiful." Different movie.

[Anonymous]

The school can't explain how they're going to do it, because the plan will differ whether it's 1 child in 4th grade who opts out of the book/movie/project, or 15, or 50. If it's 1, they'll go sit in the office and read their own book in the corner. If it's 15, they'll make a separate "book club" for those 15 to read something else. If it's 50, they'll swap kids around between classrooms so some classes read book x and others read book y.

The idea that the school should tell you today what is going to happen to an unknown number of kids for an unknown book at an unknown point in the year is ridiculous.

Schools/teachers are already overworked, and now parents want to make them do twice the lesson planning. Send your kid to religious school, keep them home, or tell them, "You might hear X but mommy and daddy don't agree with that. We believe Y" and then trust that your parenting skills and relationships are strong enough that your kid will make it through a lesson you don't love.

[Anonymous]

Or how about parents take the responsibility of teaching their kids how to listen to different viewpoints instead of opting out of everything that offends them. Opting out of a movie because, in his opinion, it didn’t accurately depict the Holocaust? Is this a joke??? Why not let the kid watch it, teach the child their view, and encourage discussion about how different points of views and opinions exist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school can't explain how they're going to do it, because the plan will differ whether it's 1 child in 4th grade who opts out of the book/movie/project, or 15, or 50. If it's 1, they'll go sit in the office and read their own book in the corner. If it's 15, they'll make a separate "book club" for those 15 to read something else. If it's 50, they'll swap kids around between classrooms so some classes read book x and others read book y.

The idea that the school should tell you today what is going to happen to an unknown number of kids for an unknown book at an unknown point in the year is ridiculous.

Schools/teachers are already overworked, and now parents want to make them do twice the lesson planning. Send your kid to religious school, keep them home, or tell them, "You might hear X but mommy and daddy don't agree with that. We believe Y" and then trust that your parenting skills and relationships are strong enough that your kid will make it through a lesson you don't love.

I dunno, that framework you described of different thresholds and different solutions based on those thresholds sounds like a plan that can and should be communicated by MCPS to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh. The Persaks can send their kids to Catholic school on their own dime if they find the concept of a book being read to their child about a same sex mommy and daddy to be so offensive.

Naw, that's not what the Supreme Court decided. You're the one who's going to have to pick up and leave if you don't agree with the Court's ruling and its implementation at MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school can't explain how they're going to do it, because the plan will differ whether it's 1 child in 4th grade who opts out of the book/movie/project, or 15, or 50. If it's 1, they'll go sit in the office and read their own book in the corner. If it's 15, they'll make a separate "book club" for those 15 to read something else. If it's 50, they'll swap kids around between classrooms so some classes read book x and others read book y.

The idea that the school should tell you today what is going to happen to an unknown number of kids for an unknown book at an unknown point in the year is ridiculous.

Schools/teachers are already overworked, and now parents want to make them do twice the lesson planning. Send your kid to religious school, keep them home, or tell them, "You might hear X but mommy and daddy don't agree with that. We believe Y" and then trust that your parenting skills and relationships are strong enough that your kid will make it through a lesson you don't love.

I dunno, that framework you described of different thresholds and different solutions based on those thresholds sounds like a plan that can and should be communicated by MCPS to me.

DP. Yes, it should, when there's enough of a plan to share at a BOE meeting, for example. I don't know why the columnist expected MCPS staff to share something that's still being developed with them before it's been presented to the board.

[Anonymous]

It’s interesting that he didn’t use the movie as a jumping off point for a conversation about depicting of the holocaust and how they can be inportant or harmful. The movie has good intent—it’s not like it’s an antisemitic movie — but I get his point that it maybe isn’t the right way to teach about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school can't explain how they're going to do it, because the plan will differ whether it's 1 child in 4th grade who opts out of the book/movie/project, or 15, or 50. If it's 1, they'll go sit in the office and read their own book in the corner. If it's 15, they'll make a separate "book club" for those 15 to read something else. If it's 50, they'll swap kids around between classrooms so some classes read book x and others read book y.

The idea that the school should tell you today what is going to happen to an unknown number of kids for an unknown book at an unknown point in the year is ridiculous.

Schools/teachers are already overworked, and now parents want to make them do twice the lesson planning. Send your kid to religious school, keep them home, or tell them, "You might hear X but mommy and daddy don't agree with that. We believe Y" and then trust that your parenting skills and relationships are strong enough that your kid will make it through a lesson you don't love.

I dunno, that framework you described of different thresholds and different solutions based on those thresholds sounds like a plan that can and should be communicated by MCPS to me.

DP. Yes, it should, when there's enough of a plan to share at a BOE meeting, for example. I don't know why the columnist expected MCPS staff to share something that's still being developed with them before it's been presented to the board.

NP. We are less than a month from the start of the school year. They need to have a clear plan in place before then. They should already have presented before the BOE to get feedback and ensure the elected officials are on board with the plan. As usual, they are dragging their feet. I fully expect more litigation because of it.

[Anonymous]

at least we never have to hear again how Moco is too liberal or woke.