North Carolina lawmakers put Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools on the defensive Wednesday during a tense oversight hearing that quickly escalated into a full-blown confrontation over parental-rights laws and LGBTQ-themed materials available to young students.
According to Fox News, the district’s top officials—School Board Chair George Griffin and Superintendent Rodney Trice—were summoned before the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform to explain how they are complying with Senate Bill 49, the Parents’ Bill of Rights.
The law restricts classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation through fourth grade and requires schools to notify parents of any name or pronoun changes, health-related developments, or LGBTQ-related curriculum.
In written testimony submitted beforehand, district leaders insisted they were fully compliant.
But lawmakers immediately challenged that claim, pointing to Griffin’s previous public statements calling the law “discriminatory” and suggesting the district did not intend to enforce all of its provisions.
WRAL reported that Griffin had emailed staff in early 2024, acknowledging that the district adopted the law as policy but intentionally omitted sections involving pronoun-change notifications and classroom instruction rules.
Those omissions drew sharp criticism.
State House Majority Leader Brenden Jones did not mince words.
“You’re here today because you chose to wage war against the law,” Jones told the officials. “This wasn’t passive resistance. It was a coordinated middle finger to this legislature and every parent in your district.”
Jones repeatedly confronted them with examples he said came directly from the district’s website, including LGBTQ-themed books recommended under “Elementary Resources.”
He held up Santa’s Husband, a children’s story about “Mr. and Mr. Claus,” and These Are My Eyes, This Is My Nose, This Is My Vulva, These Are My Toes, quoting a passage stating, “some boys have a penis but not all boys do.”
He also cited It Isn’t Rude to Be Nude, which includes cartoon illustrations of unclothed adults.
“Do you think it’s appropriate for 4-year-olds to be exposed to naked men and women and soft porn?” Jones asked Trice.
Trice said such content would not be appropriate but said he wasn’t aware of the books being recommended by the district.
Throughout the hearing, Griffin and Trice defended the district’s compliance, saying earlier confusion stemmed from implementing the law in stages.
Griffin apologized for how his past comments had been interpreted and said the withheld sections were ultimately added once administrative procedures were finalized.
A district spokesperson echoed that message in a statement to Fox News Digital, denying that the titles Jones cited were ever promoted to students.
“Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is committed to parental involvement in everything we do,” the spokesperson said. “As our testimony demonstrated, CHCCS is in compliance with the law.”
Jones called the district’s denial misleading, noting his office had provided screenshots from October showing the books linked under “LGBTQIA+ Resources In Our District,” specifically within the elementary section.
While the link now appears removed from the main menu, the page remains accessible elsewhere on the site.
“The School District’s attempts to conceal the filth they’re peddling to children just further goes to show how egregious their actions are,” Jones said, arguing that the district should “own up to it and take down the links.”
The hearing concluded with no immediate action but made clear the fight over SB 49—and over who decides what children can read—is far from over in one of North Carolina’s most contentious school districts.
