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I agree with you that no major change is needed. People can use their common sense to navigate their individual situations and do better than any massive externally imposed rule could hope to do.
Again, that is already how it works. What we are discussing here is a proposed law to force teachers to report.
The thing you're against in the abstract is also the thing I'm against in the specific. Because it turns out that in this specific case, the side you seem to be on is the one doing the thing you seem to be against.
Your speaking of "big government overreach" in the context of public schools seems to me like "get your government hands off my Medicare." Unless this is a situation where, in Canada, the meaning of "public school" is reversed from America, as in Britain (I think.) - it seems to me like that Rubicon has been crossed already. I'm reminded of objections (though not applicable north of the border) to state curriculum mandates on the grounds of teachers' First Amendment rights. Truly so, if their ability to speak as private citizens to private citizens was what was being curtailed - but as agents of the state to their captive audience? Not so much.
And particularly in Canada, one might suppose that a takeaway from the latest hullabaloo involving the legacy of residential schools would be that having schools usurp parental authority, no matter how backwards those parents are considered, should be something they might want to be more shy about. But maybe that's not the lesson they want to learn.
I disagree about 'crossing the Rubicon', if I'm understanding what you mean. Just because the government has overreached some, does not mean the seal is broken and they may as well overreach more. Every additional violation still causes additional damage and should be avoided.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and so forth.
As far as 'they are acting as government agents, not expressing their freedom of speech', I totally agree with that. We're not talking about what teachers should have the right to do as citizens, we're talking about how they should be instructed to behave as government agents.
In this case, I am arguing that our instructions to them as government agents should be to use their discretion to do what they think is best for the safety and wellbeing of the child.
This is a fairly normal thing to tell government agents to do, it's not like they're automatons where every word spoken and every movement taken is precisely and deterministically proscribed by strict policy. They're not Chinese Rooms. Working for the government ussually entails having a goal, and working at your discretion within broad guidelines to achieve it.
In this case, I think more children would be harmed if we took away the school's ability to exercise their own discretion as to what is best for the individual students in their care, and instead laid out a centralized blanket policy of universal disclosure. Yes, a government agent is involved either way; I'm talking about which set of rules for that government agent would lead to better outcomes.
And, yes, I do think that you can fairly describe leaving it to their discretion as 'less government overreach' than mandated disclosure. In the same way that 'CPS must take all children away from their parents if there is a report of suspected abuse' would be more government overreach than ' CPS must investigate all reports of suspected abuse and have the discretion to take the child away if they think they are in danger'.
I might be misunderstanding something, but it seems to me like this does not, in fact, mandate disclosure. It mandates disclosure iff social transition is to happen. There is an out here of "the kid withdraws the request for social transition upon realising this is going to involve disclosure to parents" (note the requirement for the school to "work with" the kid to plan the disclosure, so the kid will know this). Thus, this is not equivalent to "CPS must take the kids", because "do nothing" is still in fact an option. The only option closed off is "a government organisation socially transitions the kid without the parent's knowledge or consent".
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