At a meeting on Aug. 29, the Palo Alto Unified School District Board Policy Review Committee discussed the California School Boards Association’s revisions to BP 6141.2, which establishes that religion be taught neutrally and respected equally in the classroom. On Sep. 16, PAUSD officially adopted several additions to the policy.

The addition said that, when required by law, the district may notify the parents or guardians of students that “they may, via written request, opt their students out of instruction on the basis of their religious beliefs as specified in the accompanying administrative regulation.” Students who chose to opt out of such instruction were not to be subjected to any form of penalty, according to the revised policy.

BP 6141.2 was first established in 2010 to provide guidelines for the instruction of religion in schools, aiming to respect the religious beliefs of students and avoid endorsing any particular practice. It mandates that instructors behave neutrally regarding religion and respect students’ rights to practice their religion freely in the classroom.

The CBSA’s revision and PAUSD’s changes follow the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which held that the First Amendment prohibits districts from including LGBTQ+ “storybooks” in elementary curricula. Its reasoning follows that instructions, including this case, have the possibility to undermine families’ religious beliefs, and thus parents should maintain the right to remove their children from such instruction.

PAUSD’s additions to the board policy do not include how they will be implemented in the district, and the definition of “instruction of materials” is left to the interpretation of individual schools.