While it seems like public schools are caving to the transgender lobby en masse, it is encouraging to see that a school board in Virginia is standing up to the nonsense.
The Russell County School Board has voted unanimously to reject the Virginia Education Department’s new transgender policy after outrage from their community.
The policies are laid out in a document titled “Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools,” which was approved last year.
As a result, Virginia public schools are required to “adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than the model policies developed by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE).”
According to the policies, schools are required to “accept a student’s assertion of their gender identity without requiring any particular substantiating evidence, including diagnosis, treatment, or legal documents.”
So, as long a student insists they are transgender, they must be allowed to use whichever bathroom they prefer, locker rooms they prefer, etc.
What could possibly go wrong?
Luckily, school board members saw through it and not only stood up for the concerns of the community but the rights and dignity of the student body, as well.
“I was elected by the people of this community, and I intend to stand up to protect every kid and do the will of the people of Russell County — and not that of an overreaching state government,” School board member Bob Gibson said in a statement. “The most important thing we can do is protect every kid and to provide them with a safe and secure place to learn.”
Of course, the woke Virginia Department of Education criticized the decision of the Russell County School Board and claimed it was a violation of the law.
“The 2020 legislation (House Bill 145 and Senate Bill 161) requires local school boards to ‘adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than the model policies developed by the Virginia Department of Education’ by the start of the 2021-2022 school year,” a VDOE spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “It is the responsibility of the local school board to follow the law.”
Not so, says Josh Hetzler, an attorney from the Founding Freedoms Law Center, who said during the school board meeting that “the policies themselves violated various state and federal laws, including infringing upon numerous fundamental rights of students, parents, and teachers.”
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“Because of how legally problematic these model policies are, not to mention the likelihood of tangible harms to student’s bodily, privacy, safety, and dignity in private spaces, [the] school board simply cannot adopt policies consistent with the existing model policy,” Hetzler added.
The Founding Freedoms Law Center is challenging the transgender policies in court.
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