Child Theme Variables

Question

You can make your function filterable:

function brickAlign() {
    $a = "true";
    return apply_filters( 'brick_align', $a );
}

Then, in your child Theme, add a filter callback:

function child_theme_filter_brick_align( $a ) {
    return 'false';
}
add_filter( 'brick_align', 'child_theme_filter_brick_align' );

Alternately, you could pass a parameter to your function:

function brickAlign( $value="true" ) {
    // Note: you should add some error-checking here
    $a = $value;
    return $a;
}

Then, in your Child Theme, call the function like so:

<?php brickAlign( 'false' ); ?>