This story, by Corey McDonald, was first published by the Shelburne News on Sept. 14.
The Champlain Valley School District is crafting policy to affirm the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming students, one of the first policies of its kind among Vermont’s more than 90 school districts, board members said.
Since last winter, the district’s policy committee has been working on writing the policy. While much of the district-specific policy was adopted from the 2017 Vermont Agency of Education guidelines, committee members made it a point to insert affirmative language that transgender students, or gender nonconforming students, have a right under the policy to be permitted to use a locker room or restroom that aligns with the student’s gender identity.
“There’s such a really dangerous and negative movement in the country broadly — not so much in Vermont, but we’re not immune to the pressures and even coordinated campaigns that take place in other states and other districts,” Angela Arsenault, chair of the Champlain Valley School Board, said. “We have our equity policy, but we couldn’t say that it explicitly addresses any concerns that might come up around transgender students and gender non-conforming students. We felt it was important to do that.”
The policy, if adopted, would require the district to use a student’s gender and preferred name on all school records, and that student participate in school activities, like sports teams, that are in line with their gender identity.
“We have very intentionally put affirmative language that transgender students, or gender nonconforming students, have a right under this policy to be permitted to use a locker room or restroom that aligns with the student’s gender identity,” Arsenault said.
“We’re not saying ‘should be allowed,’ which was the guidance from the Agency of Education,” she said. “We’re saying, in policy, that students must be permitted to use a locker room or a restroom that aligns with their gender identity.”
While still in draft form, the full school board is expected to discuss the completed policy at its September meeting, and possibly adopt it the following month.
“We want to be really thoughtful and deliberate because this has the potential to be a real lightning rod policy,” Erika Lea, a school board member and member of the board’s policy committee, said.
The policy has had a wide range of input from members of the broader school community, including counselors, nurses, administrators and principals. High school students have already offered input, and the district is hoping to get more input from middle school students as well.
“This policy is one that we’ve taken the most time with and gathered the most community and interested party feedback and input of any policy that I’ve ever been a part of so far in four and a half years, which feels right,” Arsenault said.
The last step, she said, is to get a final round of teacher feedback.
“We asked them to tell us how this will support you and your work, and what, if anything, are we missing,” she said.
The district’s director of integrated wellness, Tony Moulton, is working at the school level to develop procedures that can be launched at the same time as the policy, board members said.
“We don’t want to put a policy out there and then leave people hanging with how we are going to manage this new policy,” Lea said, adding that they want to “have those be a parallel process.”
