The Fairfax County superintendent’s resolution to defy Virginia’s newly launched coverage on transgender college students isn’t sitting properly with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The governor’s workplace stated the Fairfax County School Board is “expected to follow the law” after Superintendent Michelle Reid stated the district would proceed to handle college students by their most well-liked names and pronouns and permit them to make use of amenities “consistent with their gender identity.”
“The law requires the Virginia Department of Education to provide model policies and requires school boards to adopt policies consistent with those provided by the Department,” Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter stated in a Wednesday assertion.
“The Fairfax County Public Schools policies diverge from VDOE model policy guidance and perpetuate a false notion that FCPS knows what’s better for a child than a child’s parent,” she stated. “The Fairfax County School Board is expected to follow the law.”
The response got here a day after Ms. Reid issued an announcement rejecting the division’s “Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity and Respect for All Students and Parents in Virginia Public Schools,” which was printed final month.
“We have concluded our detailed legal review and determined that our current Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) policies are consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws as required by the new model policies,” Ms. Reid stated within the Tuesday put up.
Other college districts have come out in opposition to the state coverage, however the outright refusal to conform by Virginia’s largest college district comes because the strongest problem but to the 16-page steering.
.@GovernorVA spokeswoman @macaulayporter responds to @fcpsnews-> “The legislation requires the Virginia Department of Education to supply mannequin insurance policies and requires college boards to undertake insurance policies per these offered by the Department. The Fairfax County Public Schools…
— Mike Emanuel (@MikeEmanuelFox) August 16, 2023
The district’s insurance policies on “gender expansive and transgender students” fly within the face of the division’s steering, which requires educators to make use of college students’ authorized names or nicknames and sex-based pronouns until their dad and mom instruct the college in writing to make use of completely different names or pronouns.
The state’s mannequin coverage additionally requires college students to make use of amenities primarily based on their intercourse.
Schools should make single-user bogs obtainable to all college students. Accommodations for in a single day area journeys should even be primarily based on intercourse, in addition to placement on athletic groups.
In addition, the state steering prohibited colleges from implementing insurance policies that “encourage or instruct teachers to conceal material information about a student from the student’s parent, including information related to gender.”
Ms. Reid stated Fairfax college students would “continue to have their privacy respected regarding gender expansive or transgender status, legal name, or sex assigned at birth,” indicating that colleges will conceal details about a scholar’s transgender standing from dad and mom until the coed says in any other case.
“All students have a right to privacy in FCPS facilities or while participating in FCPS sponsored events,” Ms. Reid stated. “Any student who has a need or desire for increased privacy, regardless of the underlying reason, shall be provided with reasonable, non-stigmatizing accommodations.”
Parents Defending Education stated that the Fairfax superintendent’s response “blatantly defies Gov. Youngkin’s guidance.”
“Per usual, leadership at FCPS is more concerned with appeasing liberal activists than they are in ensuring ALL students feel safe in schools and on-campus facilities,” stated Michele Exner, senior adviser at Parents Defending Education.
“Superintendent Reid‘s recent message regarding Virginia’s transgender policy is completely one-sided and ignores the concerns of hundreds of parents who are rightfully worried about how this policy will impact their daughters,” Ms. Exner stated. “The FCPS position potentially forces girls to share their locker rooms, sport fields, and even lodging on field trips with biological males. This is insanity and parents should not stand for it.”
The Spotsylvania County college board voted Tuesday to undertake transgender insurance policies per the state steering.
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