First comes the form to complete listing the names you will allow your child to be called, including acceptable nicknames and reasons why their name may have changed.  Next up:  a list of books you must individually mark to allow your child to check them out of the school library.  Later:  a lengthy form listing what treatments you permit the on-site nurse or medical staff from aspirin to calamine lotion to bandages; it’s unclear if gunshot wounds were included.

According to the New York Times, Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s culture war on anything that doesn’t comport with a straight, white, “Christian” male’s view of American history has led to millions of parents across the state now faced with dozens of forms to dictate specific things schools are allowed to do.

The problems are obvious and multiple:  schools must now put systems in place to accommodate myriad parental instructions, specific to each child, instantaneously or the school faces potential legal action by the parent, thanks to DeSantis’s new parental rights policy. 

But event with the mountain of new administrative needs, parents may still not get their wishes respected.  School nurses may refuse to dispense medications if they claim doing so violates their individual religious beliefs.  In other districts, teachers may ignore the explicit request to call a trans child by their chose post-transition name, regardless of the instruction of the parents, if the teacher wants to adhere to House Bill 1069, signed into law by DeSantis in May, which demands a child be referred to by the gender indicated by their external genitalia.  It’s unclear if there’s a form to sign to allow a school staffer to perform a visual or physical check on the child to confirm that gender.