FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Government of the people, by the people and for the people?
Apparently not in the Fairfax County, Virginia school district, where the school board last week voted to amend its non-discrimination policy to include undefined special protections for transgender students and employees, even though a clear majority of residents oppose the concept.
Hundreds of residents showed up for the board meeting to address the issue and its likely outcome – an invasion of privacy for thousands of students.
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If the situation plays out like it has in many other school districts across the nation, transgender boys who perceive themselves as female will be allowed to use girls restrooms and shower facilities, and the other way around.
Many Fairfax County residents are obviously very uncomfortable with that idea, as evidenced by their vocal presence at the school board meeting. A Washington Post story referred to repeated “chants, jeers and vocal opposition from hundreds of parents” in attendance.
But the board still voted 10-1 to adopt the policy, with one abstention, as if nobody else was in the room.
That enraged Elizabeth Schultz, the only board member to vote against the policy amendment. She couldn’t believe her colleagues could be so dismissive of the concerns of so many parents and taxpayers.
A lot of residents just wanted to know more, but their questions went unanswered, Schultz said.
“It was the largest turnout in the history of Fairfax County Public Schools,” Schultz told EAGnews. “There were as many people, if not more, who couldn’t get it. People were banging on the doors to get in.
“It wasn’t even so much about transgender or privacy – it was more like ‘What are you doing, and if you can’t even tell me, how can you support this?
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“‘You’re not telling us what this means, what the potential impact is, who’s going to be making decisions about who gets to use what facility, if transitioning transgender teachers are going to be allowed in the classroom in front of children.
“‘You are refusing to engage the parents as the partners they are supposed to be in the education of children.’ The overarching comments I heard at the end of the meeting is that the board members were dismissive, aloof, tone deaf, arrogant – that pretty much covers it.”
Now that the policy has been passed, school board members will have to learn about its impact on the district, sort of like when Congress approved President Obama’s Affordable Care Act before considering the potential consequences.
“When I asked when we’re going to be able to understand what this policy means, I was told Sept. 30,” Schultz said. “Staff is going to spend the next four and a half months developing regulations and handbook materials on how to implement this.
“How can you pass a policy in advance that could be highly problematic? How can you even understand what’s happening? The answer is we did it, anyway.”
Some might assume that there are unsettled issues with transgender students or employees in the Fairfax County district, like there have been in some other districts around the nation. But that’s not the case, according to Schultz.
“You would have to presume that we are not meeting these needs already, which is not true,” Schultz said. “We do it exceptionally well in those extremely rare circumstances (when transgender issues do come up). It’s handled individually at the administrative level and we’ve had no complaints.
“It’s not as if people have come out of the woodwork saying, ‘I can’t get an accommodation,’ or ‘Somebody else is being accommodated but not me.’ We manage to respect the rights and dignity and privacy of the individual, and everyone else as well.”
So why is the district suddenly adopting a policy that could lead to discomfort and a lack of privacy for an untold number of students?
The simple answer is state and federal pressure, Schultz said.
The main culprit at the state level is Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, she said.
“Mark Herring is proving himself to be an activist,” Schultz said. “He wrote a legal opinion at the beginning of March that flew in the face of eight previous attorney general opinions, regarding whether local governments and schools could extend protected class status for sexual orientation or gender identity. Previous attorney generals – Democrats and Republicans – have said no.
“All of the sudden one board member puts this on our agenda within hours of Herring’s opinion. The AG issued an opinion, so we need to amend policy, bing, bang, boom. There was no consideration of what does it mean, what impact will it have?”
At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has been telling schools around the nation that transgender students are protected under Title IX, which outlaws gender discrimination in schools. The feds have threatened to withhold millions of dollars worth of funding from schools that don’t cooperate, Schultz said.
“What I’m being told as a duly elected school board member is you don’t have the right to run your school system in a certain way,” Schultz said. “If we don’t comply you’ll take away away children’s lunch money.”
Schultz thinks school districts around the nation should call the feds’ bluff and refuse to implement the imposed transgender policy, particularly since no court has ruled that unisex restrooms and showers are required under Title IX.
She thinks schools and citizens should turn to their elected representatives in Congress to deal with the bureaucrats who are bullying schools.
“They’re telling us if we don’t implement policy according to the federal government’s whim, they are going to come and take our Title I money, our students with disabilities money, our free and reduced lunch money,” Schultz said.
“If you think you have that kind of authority, go ahead. I think school board members everywhere should stand up and say go ahead – we’ll see where our congressmen and congresswomen come down on this issue. I want to see that.
“So let them bring it. Let’s have it out on Main Street.”
Here’s video from the meeting:
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