State, local school officials cross pronouns, LGBTQ guidelines in the southwest of Washington

According to state school officers, a school district in Southwest Washington violates the protection for LGBTQ students with several guidelines, including the approach for preferred pronouns. The decision of the Washington Office of the superintendent for public lessons follows an almost two -year examination of the district guidelines and guidelines in the School District of the La Center in Clark County.

The report orders La Center to make changes to state politics quickly to protect transgender and gender-expansive students. A month leads to a new federal administration, which has taken an aggressive attitude against what President Donald Trump calls “gender ideology”.

Under the Trump administration, the US Ministry of Education has shifted to enforce the federal government Title IX sex protection With a focus based on biological sex. Trump has signed Executive Orders that restrict Access to health care to gender -known care And Intercept of transgender athletes From the competition in women's sports. Both Oregon and Washington have joined legal disputes against the executive commands of the Trump government.

The conflict in the LA Center does not affect the Trump government, but also the state and local officials on the other side of a problem with trans- and gender-specific young people in the center. The state has completed its investigation and orders the local school district of La Center to achieve compliance. The La Center's superintendent is defiant in his answer.

La Center questions the policy of gender -specific schools in Washington

Washington Ospi approved the model guidelines for the support of trans- and gender-expansive students in 2020 and asked the school districts to ask the students to provide their preferred pronouns. As described in practices in practices in the La Center in Ospi's investigation, the policy of the state of Washington demands that the students give their pronouns – and not their parents – and to have the student questions in the right way to involve their parents.

Related: Read: La Center School District Investigations Report -OSPI -Discrimination complaint No. 23-005

Ospi said in the report and quoted from his own model procedure: “For families who are supportive, the name and pronoun of the student could be confirmed for the student. For parents who are not supportive or are not aware of the transition of the student at school, it could be very dangerous to refer to their names and pronouns. ”

State politics moved to the La Center opposition when the state investigation found at a school council meeting in September 2022. In the study, an unpredictable public comment stated that to say to the students who were asked to say their pronouns: “Please set a guideline or a solution to prevent the teachers from moving the garbage into the trash.” The commentator said it was a topic of “parental rights” and hoped that the “conservative board” would address the concern.

According to minutes from the school authority, the LA Center Superintendent Peter Rosenkranz agreed that the pronoun guidelines justified further discussions. Rosary had created a new policy by the end of October. It asked the teachers to ask the students whether their name would be correct from the school, but the students would not be asked about their pronouns – that would be to the students to raise themselves.

“If you ask for pronouns in a public environment, you can feel some and others excluded,” said Rosary in his directive. “By verbally or in writing, we give every student the opportunity to identify how it would like to be transferred.”

But where the rosary seemed to be most strenuous with the state's approach to pronouns, the role of the parents was about the role of the parents. While the state argued that the inclusion of family members could be “very dangerous”, Rosenkranz said that he was firmly convinced that “these talks belong to the family”.

At least one teacher – identified in the OSPI examination as a teacher at the La Center High School and as a consultant for the gay alliance – questioned the guideline of the superintendent. The teacher asked whether it was okay to ask the students “to write their pronouns on the first day of school on a seating plate or a index card”. The superintendent replied: “This is what I ask you not to find ahead.”

In fact, Rosenkranz has a “do not ask questions, let them tell them” that teachers should follow.

Teacher objects against the La Center guidelines, the investigations arrange

Until November 2022, the questions about an official complaint by the high school teacher escalated, in which the “pronouns guidelines” of the district created a barrier that “influenced the LGBTQ community and only the LGBTQ community”. In the next month, an investigator hired by the district interviewed 11 people, although no self -identified, gender -specific students or their parents. Rosenkranz used the report to dismiss the complaint, which led to an appeal against OSPI.

In the following months, the district employee asked clearer questions, including Denelle Eiesland, which provided the superintendent by e -mail and asked whether it was acceptable to offer the students an “optional” question about “nickname, preferred name or preferred pronoun”. Rosary refused to mention the pronoun.

“The challenge is that if we ask this question we teach,” wrote Rosenkranz back in an e -mail to Eiesland. “We teach the students to ask further questions if they do not understand, and therefore it seems that an agenda seems to promote an apparently innocent question.”

Ospi found that the district guidelines of the La Center vary from state leadership in several ways, including communication with parents about students who “question their gender identity”. The OSPI examination also reached beyond the pronouns to examine the guidance of the district in relation to the curriculum and lessons. For example, the report states a district procedure in which it is: “It is not the right role of the school, curriculum, instructions or activities, of which it can reasonably be expected that children question their gender identity if there were no such questions.”

The OSPI examination also provided evidence that political disagreement had real consequences for at least one family. The statements mentioned by a “gender -specific expansive recent district graduates”, who said they were “violently surpassed” by the employees of the district, which led to “physical abuse by a family member” as well as school disorders and negative effects of mental health.

Ospi came to the conclusion that the La Center violated the state's anti -discrimination policy and did so with discriminatory purposes. The state report said that the La Center policy has a disadvantage, the ability of the students to benefit from the education programs of the district. With regard to teaching practices, the examination of OSPI found that the guidelines of the La Center “do not correspond to the non -discrimination laws in Washington”, since “the curriculum, instructions and activities based on gender identity, in particular gender -specific identity” and “unfounded grading of parents”.

OSPI ordered the district to highlight its own pronoun directive and demonstrated within 45 days of how he will comply with the politics of the model of the state. Ospi followed with related orders in the report, including a ban to share information about the gender of a student without their consent and to try to review teaching materials for anti-transent distortions.

The La Center drives back and takes into account legal options

The OSPI decision was supported by Clark County Pride, an LGBTQ community group that started in the La Center. With the conclusions of OSPI, the group agreed that the headmaster of the La Center “violated the rights of queer or survey of students and state law”.

“The question now is whether superintendent Rosenkranz and the conservative school authority will continue to spend taxpayers' resources to fight for their anti-Trans-Politics,” the group concluded in their email publication of Ospi's decision.

The school district of the La Center reacted to the OSPI report on Friday and declined which super. Rosary called it an “unfounded assertion that we have discriminated against students or families”. The explanation sent to OPB calls the 32-page report “An insult to our district, our educators and the parents, support the guidelines that prioritize both the well-being of the students and the parental rights.”

Rosenkranz lists several problems that he sees with the knowledge, including the information from the schools, to determine whether parents are “dangerous” for their children and the schools “facilitate the transfer of sex without the participation of the parents”. The superintendent argues that OSPI is “government” as an ultimate decision -maker for children, “not parents”.

The La Center's superintendent said that the district pursued the state law – and improved it by including the parents. Rosenkranz says that the district has turned to state officials to improve state politics, “but they refused to work together.”

“We will not be available, while Ospi eroded the parental authority and forces schools to act against the interests of families,” wrote the superintendent. “The School district of La Center advises with the legal advisor to determine the next steps, including potential legal challenges.”