I wanted to give you all a heads up about something that is happening during tonights school board meeting, and to ask you to pray and if at all possible attend tonights school board meeting at Luther Jackson Middle School at 7:00pm.
Below is a proposed amendment to the SR&R (Student Rights & Responsibilities handbook) being put forth by Ryan McElveen. Of course the fact that community does not have a chance to comment on such a late, incoming motion is no surprise.
As way of background:
This document (the SR&R) was posted on April 28th for the public to review,at that time it did not include the gender identity language. It was also not included at the May 9 work session when the SR&R was discussed.
The staff later wanted to make the change in language to include gender identity but realized there was not adequate time for community discussion so it was not included in 2016-2017 document up for vote later tonight.
Last night, Ryan McElveen emailed the school board at 10:30pm with the following proposed amendment:
I move to amend the motion by replacing the first sentence of Chapter I, Section J with the following: No student in FCPS shall, on the basis of age, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity.
There are no speaker spots available and it is too late to submit video testimony. There are many questions that have not been discussed. For example how many definitions of gender identity is FCPS defining (NYC defines 31)? Can any student identifying as any gender play on any sport team? (Note the recent transgender student who won girls track records in Alaska). How will FCPS treat a student who requests the "same birth gender" accommodations for their own privacy on an overnight school trip? Will that student be disciplined for "violating" this new regulation?
The Board promised last May when they passed the nondiscrimination policy that no changes would occur. They were hiring a consultant and the Board would have a report before anything happened. There have been no reports to the Board at this time.
The amendment is not even posted yet (as of 10:30 this morning) and the vote is coming at 7pm tonight. In addition, requests to Ryan McElveen to table the amendment until there can be community discussion have thus far been denied. In short we need people there tonight and to email the board (see below email addrreses) with your concern that this document that has been posted for a month, is now being changed at the last minute without the opportunity to comment. Thank you!
SchBoard@FCPS.edu
superintendantGarza@FCPS.edu