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March 29, 2024 7:52 am
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CCSD Trustees To Rehash Gender Diversity Issue Yet Again

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Clark County School District (CCSD) Board of Trustees is staging yet another meeting to discuss the ongoing issue of drafting an overarching gender diversity policy governing all schools in the district.

The meeting will be held on Thursday, March 22 from 6-9 pm in the Clark County Commission Chambers at the County Government Center located at 500 S. Grand Central Pkwy in Las Vegas.

This week’s meeting will be the third time that the item has appeared on the Board agenda since the beginning of the year. Each time it has filled to overflowing the meeting halls where it as held.

The change of venue, from the Trustees’ usual board room at 2832 E. Flamingo to the larger Commission room, is in hopes of accommodating the large crowd that this controversial topic has brought in recent months. Last month a meeting on this subject, held in the Flamingo building, came completely unravelled because there was not enough space in the building to allow all in attendance to participate.

A broad range of parents from across the district have showed up in force at each meeting to express opposition to the direction that the process was taking. Though there were also ample comments from groups in favor of such a policy, the majority attendance in all of the meetings has been from parents concerned that the policy would go too far and violate the rights of most CCSD students.

In previous meetings, recommendations from a special CCSD work group were included in meeting materials for consideration. These recommendations included allowing transgender students to use preferred name and gender on “unofficial” school records, the right of students to be addressed by a preferred pronoun; allowing students access to restrooms or locker rooms of the gender with which they identify; a possible revision of CCSD dress code; methods to support parents, students and families in transitioning of transgender students and more.

This time, however, those recommendations will be set aside and not be included in the discussion, according to Deborah Earl, vice president of the regional parent advocacy group Power2Parent (P2P).

Earl said that she and other P2P leaders met with CCSD Superintendent Pat Skorkowski, Board of Trustees President Deanna Wright and other district officials on Friday. When they were told that the recommendations would not be included, Earl said that she initially thought that the distroict had heard parent and community member concerns at the multiple meetings over the past several months.

But upon further discussion they found this was not the case, Earl said. Rather they were told that the district is not backing away from the recommendations of the working group, but just not including them on the agenda for discussion in this week’s meeting.

“After the past several months that we have been through, and the multiple meetings we have had, I don’t know how they are going to make us all forget about what those radical recommendations were or prevent people from talking about them,” Earl said.

The agenda item states that the board will discuss and take possible action on whether to direct the Superintendent to draft a new policy and/or regulation specifically for gender diverse students.
Earl said that the unified message from parents concerned about this issue should be that no policy should be created at this time.

“The bottom line is that we can’t trust the district with that,” Earl said. “They clearly aren’t listening. There shouldn’t be a policy for just one demographic at the expense of all others”
P2P is in favor of the district providing general guidance to principals that will protect all students, Earl said.

Logandale resident Lindsey Dalley, who is a member of the Moapa Valley Community Education Advisory Board (MVCEAB) expressed frustration last week that local parents should again be required to attend another long and distant meeting to make their feelings heard on this contentious issue again.

Dalley acknowledged that people are fatigued after dealing with the same subject again and again. He feared that parents might feel that their efforts had made no difference. But nothing could be further from the truth, he said.

“We have gotten a win on this,” Dalley said. “We have turned the boat around on this issue which is huge. The district was moving full steam ahead on it; it would have been a done deal and the parents from Moapa Valley, and all over the CCSD, came out in droves and brought it to a halt. That is significant.”

Dalley also said that he had been responding to many parents who have said that they feel like it has all been a waste of time.
“My response to that is: You are right, it is a waste of everybody’s time,” Dalley said. “This group of

Trustees are intent upon wasting our time. But that is how the game is played. We are watching politics here in all of its glory. It is messy. And you don’t always win. But it is a guaranteed loss if you just give up. So all we can do is keep rallying the troops and keep on going.”

Those wishing to speak at Thursday meeting can sign up to do so in advance by calling the CCSD at 702-799-1072. Those calls will be accepted until 12:00 pm on Thursday. Attendees can also sign up to speak at the beginning of the meeting. Each person to comment will have one minute to speak.

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