CCSD Trustees Plow Forward With Gender Diversity Policy

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Clark County School District Board of Trustees voted late Thursday night to move full steam ahead on a plan to craft a policy relating to students with “gender diversity identities.’

The 4-3 vote directing Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky and CCSD staff to draft language for the policy came at about 11:45 pm after nearly five hours of divisive public comment and heated board discussion. Trustees Chris Garvey, Kevin Childs and Linda Young voted against the measure.

A diverse group of community members packed into the Clark County Commission Chambers in Las Vegas and overflowed out into the lobby areas where the meeting could be viewed via television. The venue of the meeting had been changed from the Trustees’ regular board room in order to accommodate the crowd expected on the controversial item.

Progress on this same agenda item was halted in a similar meeting last month because the board’s usual meeting room was not large enough to admit all of the public who wished to participate.

The fireworks started among the divided Trustees from the very beginning. Trustee Chris Garvey questioned whether the time was right to even consider the item.

She asked CCSD attorney Carlos McDade if the district is currently out of compliance with any federal or state law or regulation. McDade assured that the district was in full compliance.

Garvey then noted that measures passed in the last state legislative session had tasked the Nevada State Department of Education to craft a regulatory framework for the protection of gender diverse students and several other groups. This was all under Senate Bill 225, known as the state’s antibullying law.

Garvey added that the State Board had not yet completed that framework.
“If we are currently in compliance on everything, I don’t understand the need to do a regulation,” Garvey said. “I am at a loss at how we should craft something that will have to adhere to something that hasn’t been created yet from the State.”

Board President Deanna Wright said that Garvey was fighting over mere semantics. “The intent is very clear that our vote is to merely ask the Superintendent and staff to work on what a policy would look like,” she said. “When the time is right, we would have to make sure that the policy complies with state law. To say that we have to wait for the state is a stall tactic.”

To back this up, Wright read a letter sent to the board from State Superintendent Steve Canavero. It confirmed that the CCSD Board was not required to wait until the state regulations had been formally adopted. Rather the district could expand upon the state framework, so long as it complies with that framework when it is adopted.

Garvey suggested, however, that the district taking action ahead of the state might have an affect on other school boards throughout the state.
“The law states that the State board has obligations to craft policy,” Garvey said. “Part of that is to engage individuals and boards across the state. But the things you do today can influence rural counties that have not yet had input to this.”

Trustee Carolyn Edwards said that policy language needs to be drafted so that a discussion about it could take place. “Right now our policy does nothing to protect transgender students,” she said. “If we want to protect all students, we should do a policy and see what we will put into it. Let’s write the policy and then have a discussion.”

The meeting continued with an extended public comment period. An estimated 200 people signed up to speak. About 120 of them actually spoke. As the evening progressed, many who had signed up did not actually speak, presumably having left the meeting due to the lateness of the hour.

Many in attendance were from the LGBTQ community and spoke vehemently in favor of a new policy. Several elected officials also gave comments in favor of the policy moving forward. This included County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, who is currently in a primary race for Nevada governor, State Senator David Parks, and Assemblyman Nelson Araujo.

“We can’t sit on this. The time has already passed,” said Araujo, who is running for secretary of state. “It is our responsibility as elected officials to always stand up for what is right.”

Wright also chose to read a letter into the record from Dan Reynolds, a member of Imagine Dragons and a CCSD graduate, who was in support of the creation of policy.
“Our LGBTQ youth need us now,” the letter read. “They need to know that they are safe at school.”

But about 60 percent of the public comments came from CCSD parents who had deep concerns about the details in a new policy on this matter. Many of these were parents from the Moapa Valley communities who questioned the need for a policy.

“I’ve had a chance to look closely over NRS 388 (the anti-bullying law) and see what all is covered there,” said Logandale parent Erika Whitmore. “It includes perceived age, race, color, and a long list of groups. It covers about all groups that are out there. We do not need an additional policy that singles one group out.”

Whitmore said that she could instead support the drafting of a set of administrative guidelines to assist principals in dealing with transgender youth on a case by case basis in their schools.

Many parents expressed frustration that the board was not listening to the repeated message sent by parents over the course of more than half a dozen public meetings and forums in the past four months.

Moapa parent Lisa Wolfley said referred to a meeting last fall of the state board of education on the subject of drafting guidelines. She said that the state had held back on drafting the guidelines giving an opportunity for local districts to receive feedback from the public.
“Parents have met with you and you have our feedback; again and again,” Wolfley said. “We as your constituents are not in favor of this. Your duty now is to report back to the state that current laws are adequate, not to go off ahead on a policy we don’t want.”

“Some have said to write a policy first and then talk about it,” said Logandale resident Lindsey Dalley. “It is that idea that has brought us to this point where you had a working group make a recommendation that has been discarded. I have never seen a more involved constituency against a policy than what I have seen with this process. I don’t know what more discussion you need.”

Logandale parent Bryan Mortensen pointed out that members of the board seemed to be pushing hard for an agenda. He specifically referenced the Dan Reynolds letter read by Wright into the record and asked why it alone had been chosen to be read.
“I have written two different letters to this board through the President,” Mortensen said. “I know many parents who have written other letters. Where are those letters? Why are they not read here tonight?”

Most parents who commented expressed concern about the safety and privacy of their children. Specifically they were worried about earlier recommendations from a CCSD working group which had allowed transgender students to choose the restroom and/or locker room of their identifying gender.

“We know that there will be kids out there who will abuse this policy if it is put in place,” said Tiffany Frederick, a Moapa mom. “Then my child is no longer safe in a place she is supposed to feel safe.”

Frederick and many other parents stressed in their comments that, if the board chose to draft the policy, parents must be included prominently in the drafting process. They insisted that the safety of all children must be considered in any such policy, and not just the protection of the few transgender students.

The three dissenting trustees invoked the overwhelming opposition of parents in insisting that proceeding with a policy was premature. They each expressed strong doubts that a new policy, once formed and approved, would actually fulfill its aims. Meanwhile the process had done damage to the trust of parents and caused deep division within the district, they said.

“I come from the black culture,” said Trustee Linda Young. “We had all kinds of laws that said that there was equality for all races. And yet just yesterday, I read that black men wearing hoodies are still more likely to get shot. This can’t come from a policy. It has to be a change in culture.”

Young also warned that deep divisions could only be healed by people coming together in a consensus for the good of everyone. “The way this has been done is troubling,” she said. “I want to stress again that this can’t be an ‘I win, you lose’ kind of issue. We can’t do that. We have so many children that have issues that a policy should extend to protect all of them, not just one group that gets to have a win.”

Childs agreed that a policy wouldn’t solve the problems. “We have a strong anti-bullying law in this state,” he said. “But it isn’t working. There are still kids that suffer from unkindness and bullying. I can’t support a new policy until we find a way to make what we have start working.”

Garvey reiterated that she was unhappy with the way that the item was being pushed by the other trustees.
“My belief is that this agenda item and the whole process behind it has been biased,” Garvey said. “I think that it has been pushed in a certain direction all along. The letters I’ve received from my School Organizational Teams were all in opposition to a policy at this time because there is not yet any guidance from the state.”

“I have concerns when I hear two of the trustees say that they want to use bond money to retrofit all of the restrooms in the schools for transgender students; taking out all of the urinals and so on,” Garvey continued. “I can’t believe that we have that discussion when I have HVAC issues and electrical issues and other things in so many buildings that need to be addressed. That is a concern. I just don’t believe that I can vote for this.”

But the four trustees who eventually voted in favor of the measure were largely unaffected by these arguments or by the repeated pleas of parents.

Edwards, who terms out of office at the end of this year, made a motion to move forward with the drafting of policy. She expressed an impatience to have the policy drafted, discussed and approved within the next few months.
“There have been a lot of efforts to stall this,” Edwards said. “We started this back in September and originally hoped to have language by December. We are now in March, almost April. We will be lucky to bring language by June. And under no circumstnces will I agree to any kind of stall over the summer because people are on vacation. I won’t be swayed by that argument. It happened to me in the Sex Ed issue. It was wrong then and it will be wrong now.”

Trustee Lola Brooks strongly disagreed with many parents who had warned that trustees would pay a political price for voting for the policy. “Many people mentioned that we are beholden to voters and threatened us to vote a certain way,” she said. “But I’d point out that the person who sat here in my seat before me was vocally opposed to Sex Ed and transgender youth. You might notice that they are not sitting here anymore and I am. I know what my supporters are and what they want.”

Wright suggested that everyone in the room agreed that all students should feel safe at school. But she insisted that a new policy was needed to accomplish that. “In order for kids to feel safe they have to have a safe adult at the school to report to,” she said. “That is hard to do without a guiding policy behind it.”

Trustee Linda Cavazos recognized the many parents and children from the Hispanic community who had expressed fears about a transgender policy in their comments. She insisted that their concerns would not be forgotten.
“But how long will we wait to collaborate on this?” Cavazos asked. “I really feel that we have to work together. The ones expressing fear – and there is a lot of that – how long will we wait to work together?”