California schools don’t have to tell parents when a student comes out as transgender — but if a parent asks, the school has to answer honestly, a San Bernardino County judge ruled on September 15, 2026, reports Howard Blume for The Los Angeles Times. The decision is the latest turn in a years-long fight over the Chino Valley Unified School District’s push to require staff to alert parents about students’ gender identity.
Superior Court Judge Michael Sachs rejected the district’s bid to reinstate a mandatory notification policy, telling the court, “There is no requirement that the school district, on its own, after learning of transgender issues, contact parents and let the parents know of them.” But he added that “in the event a parent makes an affirmative inquiry of a minor child regarding their status, whether transgender or not, that will trigger an obligation by the school district to respond.”
Sachs was balancing a 2025 California law barring districts from forcing teachers to out students, against a March 2026 U.S. Supreme Court order affirming that parents have a right to learn about their child’s gender identity at school when they ask for it — and that staff can’t lie to them.
Chino Valley’s original 2023 policy, which singled out transgender students for mandatory disclosure over pronouns, bathrooms and sports, was struck down as discriminatory in 2024. The district has since revised it to apply to all students uniformly, and separately is challenging the 2025 state law in court.
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Board president Sonja Shaw, a Republican candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, called the ruling insufficient: “When he talks about a parent has a right to know now only if they ask, how do you know you’re being lied to or secrets being kept?” Attorney Emily Rae, representing the district, agreed the ruling didn’t go far enough, arguing notification should be mandatory statewide.
