Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Yugga Bugga
I just made that title up. This post is a rough draft of a letter to the editor I want to send to our local newspaper about the activities of our local school board, of which I am a member, regarding the “transgender issue.” Y’all can help me make sure it’s clear and cogent.
As always, I preface my comments with the statement that my opinions are my own, and I’m speaking as an individual board member, and not on behalf of the entire school board. My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of individual board members, nor the district itself.
In 2019 the Lynden School Board adopted a new policy, 3211, titled “Gender Inclusive Schools.” This policy was a mandate from state law (RCW 28A.642.090), which itself is the product of Senate Bill 5689. The bill passed both houses of the legislature and signed was by the governor in April 2019.
It is important to pause here and point out that public schools in Washington are governed, primarily, by four entities: the state legislature, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA), and local school boards. Obviously there are other entities that have input, such as the federal government, but the nuts and bolts are generally hammered out and implemented by those four bodies.
When SB5689 was passed, it required WSSDA and OSPI to collaborate in order to “develop and amend” a “model transgender student policy and procedure.” The law required all school districts to adopt policies and procedures that “incorporate all the elements of the model transgender student policy and procedure” that OSPI and WSSDA came up with. To summarize, the legislature told OSPI and WSSDA to create a policy regarding gender inclusivity, and it required all school districts to adopt that policy.
So far I’ve described the history of how these gender-inclusive policies were created, but I have not talked about the content of said policies. The legislature was rather vague about the content of the policies. They punted the issue to OSPI, saying they must include OSPI’s “rules and guidelines” in order to “eliminate discrimination” on the bases of gender identity. The bill refenced a very short RCW that simply instructs OSPI to create rules and guidelines. The rules and guidelines, as currently published by OSPI, are what you think they are: they require the use of preferred pronouns in both official and unofficial records, unless the records in question require a legal name. They require staff, teachers, coaches, bus drivers, etc., to use preferred pronouns. They require school districts to allow students to use the restrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. They require school districts to allow students to participate in physical education and athletic activities that correspond with their gender identity.
In 2022, an edit to the gender inclusive policy came to the Lynden School Board’s attention, and it was at that time that I first became aware of the policy and the procedure. I had no idea such a thing existed. I had thought that all of this was just talk, and not a matter of state law. At that time I requested a meeting with the district’s legal counsel to discuss the policy. The content of that discussion is not public knowledge and thus I cannot share it here. But suffice to say that nothing about what I’d understood before the meeting changed: we were required by state law to have the policy. So we approved the edit to the policy and moved on. But I was never happy with it.
Last year, just before the community elected new school board members (I was up for election), I said to our presumptive board president that I wanted to “find some way” to get that policy back before the board, depending on how the election went. As it happened, the election went the way I expected, and there were now 5 conservative board members who all felt the same way about the issue. But still we needed to figure out what we would do.
Fortunately for us, and I use the term tongue-in-cheek, the state helped us out. Two things happened at the tail end of the 23/24 school year that brought this to a head. OSPI began requiring all schools to publish in their parent handbook the “rules and guidelines” related to gender inclusivity. In May of this year, a male athlete who identifies as a female won a track and field event against actual females. These things gave us the “opportunity” to bring the issues back in to discussion.
What the board decided to do was engage in a multi-pronged approach to the issue. We would would push on all of the agencies and entities involved in order to “move the needle” in the right direction. To that end, the school board has done the following:
- We amended the gender inclusive procedure to remove language that required the district to actively lie to parents.
- We passed a resolution stating our opposition to males participating in female sports, and directing our superintendent to draft an amendment to the rules governing interscholastic sporting events.
- We wrote letters to the three legislators that represent our district urging them to review relevant state laws, and recent scientific evidence regarding the issue.
- We wrote a letter to the interscholastic association that governs sporting events, urging them to review their practices regarding the issue.
Unfortunately, a tiny district in a very blue state doesn’t have a lot of leverage with the state governing bodies, but we’ve got a lot of districts who agree with us across the state. Someone said in one of our board meetings, “Don’t give an inch on this issue.” The problem, of course, is that all the inches are given. The side of sanity hasn’t any more inches to give. What we hope our efforts will do is claw some of the inches back, and that we can use those inches to claw more inches back.
Published in General
The only solution is to rip out these policies root and branch. there is nothing in them worth reforming nor preserving.
I admire your patience. I couldn’t do what you’re doing.
I continue to believe that the gender-identity movement is one we will defeat, both because it’s fundamentally stupid and also because it’s so terribly harmful to women and children. Having said that, I don’t think it’s going to be won from the top down, because its champions — too many of them in the education industry — have completely bought in to the nonsense.
Public exposure, sunlight, is what will eventually put a stake in this thing. I think you’re doing exactly the right things: tell people what’s going on, make sure the school can’t conspire with troubled children to deceive their parents, and keep expressing skepticism.
The parents of Washington are lucky to have your participation.
You mean you think the school board should just eliminate the policies?
Bravo! You all are heroes.
Yes. Reject the premise.
I lost my patience in a school board meeting last month. A bunch of parents, well meaning but not well informed, and gotten it in to their head that we were trying to “make it so boys can play in girls sports.” They came to protest, not realizing that we are actually doing the opposite of what they think we are doing, and that the thing they don’t want is the reality. So, I got a little huffy.
Some people want us to just “blow it all up”, figuratively speaking. And so if we don’t move fast enough, they start spreading rumors and outright lies, which just works to make the process more difficult.
Thanks for your kind words, however.
The local school district is nearly 80% funded by the state government using funds collected by all property tax payers in the state. And we all swore an oath to uphold the laws of the state. Which means the proper path, until exhausted, is to try to work to change the rules and laws first, not contravene them. Otherwise we run the risk of the district being defunded and/or the state taking full control and dissolving the board.
Fortunately, we think the will of the people (statewide) is generally with us.
Should we also withdraw our district from interscholastic athletic competition? What do you think the result of that will be? Do the parents and grandparents of the district’s football players have the resolve to forego their sons’ and grandsons’ dreams of winning a state championship?
How about enacting a transgender leagues where transgender athletes can only compete with other transgender athletes.
That should solve the gamesmanship those deluded non competitive males are engaging.
Do these requirements imposed by the education hierarchy go beyond the requirements of federal, state, and local law? IOW, must the general public abide by these requirements in social and business interactions?
After 8 years as a trustee I just had my last school board meeting. Under our (Texas) public meeting law we literally are required to offer public comment but also cannot answer in any way, so people are free to rant and rave and we can’t directly answer. If it’s relevant to an agenda item we can talk about it then, but often it’s something completely different. It gets pretty frustrating.
If we hold a “workshop” we can have back and forth. We do it when we set the tax rate and approve the budget every year, but guess which meetings no one attends.
No, the relevant policies and statutes I mentioned govern public schools.
That won’t work, and I’ll explain why.
The law requires districts to allow students to participate in the athletic event that corresponds with their gender identity.
So let’s say we created a category called “transgender”. The student athlete who is biologically male but believes themself to be a female will simply say “I’m not transgender, I’m a girl.” Under the lunacy that is the state law on this subject, the district would then be required to allow the student to participate in girls sports.
I would recommend the book Transgender to Transformed, which is a really good look in to the mind of a transgender person.
If you plan to copy this back into your actual letter, you’ve got a double “would” in there, and a “has doesn’t” that should be fixed.
That’s all I’ve noticed so far.
“was passed” should be just “passed” or maybe “was passed by.”
“at that” should probably just be “that.”
You might want to define “RCW” at least the first time used.
Thanks for this clarification. This is one of the reasons why our Governor can’t get much traction on property tax “reform.” Local control might be expensive, but it restricts the ability of the state to dictate unpopular mandates on public schools.
That’s interesting – ours are funded about 80 percent by local property taxes. The state has taken over more of the burden due to a big ($30 billion) budget surplus. We have actually dropped the local tax rate three years in a row. Due to some new exemptions most people’s total property tax bill actually went down.
I’m finished with the school board but I’m now on the tax appraisal district board, and that stuff is complicated enough to give you a headache.
We also have a system whereby “property rich” school districts have to send some of the money collected from local property taxes to the state for redistribution to “property poor” districts (generally called the Robin Hood law). You can imagine how popular that is.
Thats wild, the last bit. Since most of the burden is a state wide tax, and schools are paid per student, we don’t see that too much. We do a thing called regionalization, where property rich districts get a bit more money, since they pay more. That doesn’t seem like something liberals would go for, but remember that all the wealthy districts are blue, and the small districts are red…
It’s crazy – it started with a Fed lawsuit by a “poor” district. Every few years some Fed judge would decide he didn’t like the state plan and force the state to modify it. There are crazy things that happen, like districts can buy student attendance from other districts to make their numbers look better and be less vulnerable. Like any government plan, there are secondary effects no one could predict.
Make them defund you for this nonsense and then face the voters. You risk the voters not agreeing with you. So be it. Let them vote their own shackles, if that’s what the voters want.
You mention “a very short RCW ” – what is a RCW?
Revised Code of Washington. Basically state law.
Looks like my other notes have been addressed, but “would would” remains.
Relax, kemosabe. I’ll get to it! ;-)
Okay. I wasn’t sure if you understood what I meant by the original double-“would” comment and didn’t realize I meant “would would.”
And of course, if you change it now yourself, it’ll go back to the Member Feed.
Who is your audience? I assume it is parents opposed to the gender-confused policies in your district and who are frustrated that the school board is not doing enough to change things. Since you got five new conservative board members, these parents are probably a majority of the district.
What is your message to them? It sounds like you are trying to inform them of the efforts that you have made and the limitations imposed on you by state budget power and statutes.
I would cut back the historical back-and-forth on how the current situation came to be. It’s important for the parents to know this, but I would summarize it. In general, I would shorten the letter, maybe by half, because your audience is busy parents who may not read to the end.
It may not be wise from a strategy point of view to show your hand, but I think the parents will want to know steps you are going to take to end the insanity. If I were a parent, I would view your actions to date as weak tea – I understand that you probably face serious limits on what you can do, but if I had kids in your high school I would view it as urgent and imperative. Anything you can say about your plans without revealing too much will reassure the parents.
Letting the parents know how they can get involved would help to get them more active.
You’ve also got some phrases in there that come across as sarcastic, when you’re probably trying for irony. For example, “Fortunately for us, and I use the term tongue-in-cheek, the state helped us out” or “These things gave us the opportunity.”
Thanks for serving on your school board and standing up for what is right and best and for sharing a very good letter with us.
Primarily my audience is the community, who are mostly with me, but who’ve been mislead by…let’s call it “energy” within the district in to thinking we are doing the opposite of what we are doing.
As is, it’s about twice as long as I need it to be for the paper, so cutting out the historical is probably wise.
Thanks for your advice.
Or summarize, rather than cut out entirely.
Then I would strengthen your letter as much as possible, without turning off the centrists or moderates whose support you may need. As is, it looks like you’re not just written a few letters and left it at that. Make clear the limitations that you face, but also talk about fighting for the daughters of the community. Make it clear you’re in a battle and doing everything you can against powerful forces in Olympia arrayed against you. As much is wise, talk about what you plan to do. If you can’t give details, state your goals clearly and forcefully.
And definitely enlist the community’s help. They need to write their representatives, call their offices, call the state school board, etc. Getting them involved will give them something constructive to do.
Good luck and godspeed.
Laudable, but then how do you choose not to include this:
It’s a tough spot. You’ve already done something that will get the statewide organizations after you. If they choose to make an example of your school district, be prepared to shift into open defiance (or capitulate).
Or maybe hold off until Trump takes office and you have more backup.