The District School Board was the focus of major media attention from 1997 to 2002 over its stand on not allowing books about families with same-sex parents to be included as optional learning resources.

These books were requested by James Chamberlain, a kindergarten teacher, to reflect on the realities of today's families and to teach his pupils about diversity and tolerance.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin dismissed the Board's concerns that children would be confused or misled by classroom information about same-sex parents.

In 2005, the Surrey School District made national news for cancelling production of The Laramie Project, a play that deals with the murder of a gay university student, in Elgin Park Secondary.

[18] In May 2007, the Surrey School Board made national news when it voted to instruct teachers not to show Al Gore's Academy Award-winning documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, until trustees were able to review the film.

"[19] In early November 2009, a Cloverdale father, Paul Jubenvill, requested an extra-curricular, non-instructional, voluntarily-attended Bible club be established during lunch-hour at his sons' school,[20][21] Colebrook Elementary.

The father argued that this ban violated the provincial BC Human Rights Code by disallowing a normally available service on the grounds of discrimination against religion.

[29] In November 2013 the School Board adopted an anti-discrimination code to provide protection for students and staff against homophobic and other forms of bullying.