During Monday night's Board of Education meeting, Amy Cawvey repeatedly referred to a KORA request that revealed Jeff Bollin was hiding the fact that Pete Im wanted to rescind the Transgender Student Policy when he requested it be added to the February meeting agenda. This is the same policy that she forced through in December. Remember? That's the meeting where "Transgender Student Guidelines: Handbook Addendum" appeared as item 7.5 under New Board of Education Business. Only we didn't get guidelines. We got a policy. An agenda item went from the introduction of suggested guidelines to an enforceable policy within one meeting. That doesn't allow for the community to properly prepare their comments to the board, which is what she claims to have wanted for the February meeting. Three board members vehemently opposed the adoption of that policy in December. Four board members didn't care about their concerns and the concerns of several speakers during public comments.
Amy regularly demands transparency when dealing with teachers and parents, so why not just share the results of her KORA request? Maybe it isn't the smoking gun she suggests it is. So we requested the same information and we'll share it here. As you read through the emails, you'll see that Pete Im did want to rescind the Transgender Student Policy. He also wanted to use the committee to analyze whether a stand-alone policy for transgender students was necessary or if it could be incorporated into other student policies. He wanted there to be information in the policy to explain the reason behind the policy. Pete is new to the board and Aaron helped him refine his request from rescinding the policy to refining it by committee.
The Transgender Student Policy needs to be reviewed and revised. It is a nearly word-for-word adoption of the Gardner-Edgerton policy that is available as "Model Policy" on the Kansas School Board Resource Center's website. In discussion, Jeff pointed out many of the concerning issues in the policy, including the mention of supports offered to transgender students but no outline of what those supports are. When a student reveals their need for supports to a faculty member or counselor, there are steps for the faculty member or counselor to take. But the last line of the policy states, "A student may remove their request for support measures if they wish to not proceed due to the requirement of parental notification." Does the staff member have to report to the parents or not? This is not a well-written policy.
Amy mentions an article in which Kris Kobach, state of Kansas Attorney General, threatens schools who don't enact policies to out their transgender students. As it turns out, Kansas has no law that requires teachers to reveal a student's social transitioning and his threat offered no repercussions for not following his demand. Click here for a related AP article. The fact is, teachers want to partner with parents to ensure the success of their students. They are less about "keep secrets" and more about respecting the students entrusted to them. There is a middle ground here, but some of our board members need to stop vilifying our educators, administrators, and counselors and find common sense solutions to this issue.
As you read through the emails, be aware of dates on the emails. They aren't necessarily chronological. Board members and the superintendent are asked to forward relevant information to the Clerk of the Board, so they are sometimes out of order. Look for a special appearance by Pete Robinson. The emails date back to last year. He asks if students can be suspended for participating in the Student Walkout ahead of the December BOE meeting. Shortly after, Amy asks the same question. Considering their hot mic conversation ahead of the meeting, mocking the students who participated, they probably weren't actually concerned about them expressing themselves.
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