As we stumble into November with Thanksgiving on the way, there is one thing for which I am grateful today. That is the fact that none of my grandchildren attend school in the Loudoun County, Va., school district. If there was ever a school district that was destined to become the subject of a soap opera, it is that one. Can anyone remember a time when the district was in the news for something positive? Virginia readers, I'm looking at you. Anyone? Anyone? Okay, I've got a bit of positive news, although it is a mixed blessing.
The district has yet to reverse Policy 8040, which allows people to use whatever bathroom corresponds to their gender at any given second. That's the bad news. Not unexpected, just bad. But there is good news. There are reasons to have hope for future generations, at least until they are accepted into Cornell or Columbia.
WJLA reports that on Wednesday, 50 to 100 students at Woodgrove High School staged a walkout, not in solidarity with the gender roulette and revolving pronoun movements, but because they want single-sex bathrooms restored. One male student told the outlet:
In the locker rooms in the morning it's an invasion of privacy, as I said because when men and natural-born males are in our locker rooms and they are showering in the morning, natural-born females can walk in there as they please. And that is not OK. And it goes against what we believe in.
A female student commented:
It's a massive safety risk, and they [LCPS] don't do anything about it. And we express these concerns and they ignore us and write us off as right-wing crazies. We're not crazy. We just don't want to be in danger on a daily basis in this building. I think it's people finally stepping up and just being sick of it. We're sick of being here and just being completely ignored. I stopped using them [the bathrooms] because I don't know what's going to happen to me in there. And people can be like, 'Oh, well, that's paranoid'. I'm telling you right now half the women in this building feel the same way. We don't use the bathrooms. We hold our pee until we can't. I mean, there are girls in PE [Physical Education class] who still get changed in the bathroom stalls in there because they're afraid of who might waltz in.
Another student said that many pupils are opposed to the bathroom policy but feel too intimidated to speak out. The station said that it had received reports of students who wanted to join the walkout but were discouraged from doing so by their teachers. Would those teachers have encouraged their students to join the counter-protest that was held across the street?
The Loudoun County School District has become like a cyst that is occasionally shaved off by a dermatologist but never removed. It keeps resurfacing in the news cycle. In October, Catherine Salgado reported on the conviction of former Superintendent Scott Ziegler for his role in covering up the rape that made national headlines. According to WJLA, Ziegler's replacement, Dr. Aaron Spence, is now facing scrutiny and at least one call for his resignation after he failed to report drug overdoses by students at Park View High School.
One would think that by this point, the district would have figured out that the policies of progressivism and power are not only ineffective but dangerous. That light bulb seems to not have blinked on over the board members' heads. But we can take solace in the fact the students seem to be more rational than their teachers and the board.
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