The Alaska State Senate is set to vote on a bill that critics warn will empower educational bureaucrats with authority to craft mental health guidelines for impressionable students, thereby opening the door for public schools to push topics like gender identity, sexual orientation, systemic racism, DEI and more.

Sponsored by hard-left Democrat Senators Elvi Gray-Jackson, Forrest Dunbar, Loki Tobin, Scott Kawasaki, and left-leaning Republican Cathy Giessel, SB 41 aims to vastly expand the ability of public schools to address a litany of mental health issues.

The bill requires the Alaska Education Board to develop “age-appropriate” mental health education guidelines for K-12 public schools. While it includes parental notification requirements, it is framed as an opt-out, not an opt-in program, meaning kids will undergo this education unless parents proactively pull them from the courses.

The bill has advanced to third reading and is scheduled for a vote by the full Senate on April 10. If it passes the Senate, it will move to the House for consideration.

Introduced last year, the bill has raised concerns from parental rights advocates who warn that it could be used to push controversial ideologies that run contrary to traditional family values. Others have argued that mental health is something that should be addressed by parents in the home, not by a struggling government educational system that is already failing to instill basic academic skills in the vast majority of Alaska students.

“Giving education bureaucrats the authority to develop mental health guidelines for children is a dangerous proposition, as we have all seen what leftist ideologues do to develop curriculum,” warned Alaska Family Council Vice President Tim Barto in a Must Read Alaska column last year. “It opens the door for topics such as racism, equity, sexuality, and gender to creep their way into public schools under the guise of mental health.”

TAKING ACTION

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