The Examiner U-46 News Feed
U-46 policy opposition continues to be voiced
By Seth Hancock
School District U-46 has released guidelines regarding transgender students, but those guidelines did not alleviate but rather “exasperated” the concerns of many members of the public who spoke at the Board of Education meeting on Monday, Oct. 3.
The guidelines were released prior to the meeting in a weekly message from U-46 CEO Tony Sanders, but they both appear vague as well as in denial of biological facts as the guidelines claim a person’s sex is “assigned at birth.”
Regardless of legal status, a student can request to be referred to “by a name and pronoun corresponding to the gender identity” rather than their legal name and actual biological sex, and no legal change is necessary as they “are not required to obtain a court order.”
Regarding overnight school trips, the guidelines offer no details other than to say transgender students are “permitted to participate” and the district will “appropriately accommodate” meaning the possibility that biological boys and girls could be permitted to sleep together if the administration deems it appropriate.
Sanders said there were no guidelines until now, and they were drafted after the administration changed its practice regarding bathroom/locker room access, which was made with no public discussion, last month to accommodate one middle school transgender student who wanted access to the facilities of their “gender identity” rather than actual biological sex at the same time as others are using the facilities. That student will change in a privacy stall with a staff member monitoring.
Board member Jeanette Ward made the change in practice public a month ago via social media. At the meeting, she asked who drafted the guidelines, why wasn’t the board included in drafting them and she wanted more details.
U-46 used outside legal counsel as well as its chief legal officer Miguel Rodriguez to develop the guidelines according to Sanders, and because this was procedural he felt the board didn’t need to be involved.
It was the third straight meeting in which a vast majority of the public came out to oppose the change. Of the 157 public comments made so far, 76 percent have been opposed.
“There are a diverse set of views and values in our community, and at the moment the current guidelines favor one group while dismissing another,” said Ward who said the district should “take a step back” and seek a compromise. She added: “As we’ve heard for our third meeting in a row, our constituents overwhelmingly do not support this policy that we’ve instituted.”
Despite the overwhelming opposition the board’s majority of Traci Ellis, Sue Kerr, Veronica Noland and Donna Smith have responded by relegating public comments to the end of meetings going forward while Sanders remains steadfast as he said: “I think we made the right decision. I still stand by that decision.”
In contrast, board member Cody Holt said the public has raised “some very valid concerns” and that the privacy rights of all students needs to be “communicated efficiently to our parents and our community members.” Board member Phil Costello said: “The process has to be understood, it has to be respected and it has to be announced to the community because clearly that has not been, at least from my perspective, done as well as we could.”
Sanders has continued to leave questions unanswered, including from John Kirkwood who listed a series of questions during public comments regarding the guidelines: Will students or staff who do not use “opposite sex pronouns” to refer to transgender students be punished? Will the district remove privacy stalls when a transgender student claims it as “unjustly discriminatory?” Considering the high rates of suicide among the transgender community, “is it not the better part of wisdom to take a neutral, not celebratory, approach?” Why was no compromise sought? Who assigns a person’s biological sex? Will guidelines be created regarding treatment of Judeo-Christian families and staff considering the backlash they’ve received for simply opposing this change?
Kirkwood asked for written responses to his questions and The Examiner requested those responses as well, but Sanders has yet to provide any.
Sanders has justified the change by citing law and board policy, but he did not cite any of that until it was made public. The reason he gave to the board, prior to it being public, for making the change behind closed doors was because “experts do not recommend notifying” the public, and Costello said at the Sept. 12 meeting that no board policy was ever cited to justify it.
The public has dismantled the claims by Sanders that law and board policy require the change. Many commenters’ have pointed out that the letter from President Barrack Obama is being fought in court and there is a nationwide injunction which precludes the federal government from denying funds, and the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA) regarding discrimination clearly exempts “facilities distinctly private” under Sec. 5-103, Subsection (B).
Board policy 7.010 cites the IHRA and when a change to the policy was made in 2013, the previous board unanimously approved it with no discussion on it being used to justify such a change in the future.
After making the change public, Ward has been accused of bullying and outing the student despite her not divulging any personal information but rather only informing the public of the change in practice. Sanders, in his weekly message, admitted the change could have been made public as he wrote “we could have done a better job communicating the change” and at the meeting he said the middle school student had already shared that they were transgender with the school community before the change was made.
“I’m sorry, but the change was not communicated at all,” Cassie Diehl told the board during public comments. “The one person who did do a better job of communicating the change is being crucified for it, and she deserves an apology.”
Grady Howser, a business owner and U-46 resident, came to speak to Sanders “as another business executive one to another,” and he said “you clearly do not have your constituency behind you, it’s not even close.”
“You’ve turned us into the poster child of this issue, and I will tell you from a business standpoint it’s no good for property values and it brings us significant legal risk,” Howser said.
Howser added: “By your actions, I’ve got to ask you are you just begging for a lawsuit here in U-46? And if you are, what possible good would it do? It would cost the taxpayers untold dollars and it would accomplish no good because this is going to play itself out in the courts.”
The values and opinions of parents are valued more and treated with more respect in the private sector as several private school administrators have spoken at recent meetings including Jason Walker, a resident of U-46 for two decades, who said if he made such a change in secret at his school “my head would be on the chopping block.”
Walker added: “I knew that the Bible had been kicked out of the public schools many years ago, but after this decision I guess the next book we ought to kick out of the schools is the biology book.”
Robin Olen told Sanders: “If I had you as a Chief Executive Officer… you would be out of here. I would not even consider you.”
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