District considering policies aimed at LGBTQ+ students

The South Side Area School District in Beaver County is weighing potential policies that could impact LGBTQ+ students.

The three policies, introduced during the board’s Dec. 6 meeting, focus on student records including names, sex and gender identity, as well as participation in athletics and bathroom use. The proposals came weeks after a conservative slate of candidates who ran on the slogan “For South Side education, not indoctrination” were elected to the board.

But the policies are already causing concern in the small, rural community, which was thrust into a debate over the rights of LGBTQ+ students earlier this year when directors created a pronoun committee to determine if teachers need to use students’ preferred names and pronouns. The committee was disbanded in May.

“It’s really a politicized attack on particular students, LGBTQ students,” Kristina Moon, a senior attorney at the Education Law Center, a legal advocacy organization, said. “These three policies really work together with other concerns we’ve heard about in South Side as well as other school districts about bullying and harassment of this population of gay and trans students not being appropriately addressed by school staff. All of this together creates a hostile environment where LGBTQ students are not given the same opportunity to learn in school.”

At South Side, the three proposed policies are titled “Student Records — Name, Sex, and Gender Identity,” “Sex-Based Distinctions in Multi-User Privacy Facilities” and “Sex-Based Distinctions in Athletics.”

The first policy regarding student records lays out guidance for using students’ preferred names and pronouns. It states that when enrolling their child in the district parents must indicate the student’s sex for school records. If a student’s gender identification changes while they are attending South Side, the student and parent must provide the district with the new identity in writing. They may also provide “signed statements from the student’s personal physician, therapist, or licensed counselor verifying that the student has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” the policy reads.

Similarly, if a student changes their name a parent or eligible student — those who are 18 and older or who are legally emancipated — must submit a legal document reflecting the new name.

Under that policy, staff and teachers must “refer to each student using only the pronouns appropriate to the sex appearing in the student’s official record,” the policy reads. District officials also will not refer to students “by names or pronouns that are inconsistent with the student’s sex without obtaining the written permission of the student’s” parent or guardian, according to the proposed policy.

If school staff and teachers cannot address a student by their preferred names and pronouns “as a matter of conscience” they do not have to “but must avoid addressing the student by the unwanted first name and pronoun,” the policy reads.

It also states that the district will not conceal information about a student’s mental, emotional or physical health from parents and guardians, including information related to gender identification.

The second proposed policy regarding privacy facilities — including bathrooms, locker rooms and showers — says that students must use facilities that correspond to their sex, defined in the policy as “the biological distinction between male and female based on reproductive biology and genetic makeup.” The use of single-user facilities is permitted for those wanting more privacy.

Similarly, students in athletics must join teams that match their sex, or join in coed leagues.

Students are able to try out for a team of the opposite gender if there is not a team specific to their sex. Under the policy male students can play on teams designated for females if they have not begun puberty. Students seeking to do so must provide a doctor’s note to the athletic director stating the child has not begun puberty.

A male student may also be permitted to try out for a female team if they would not displace any girl from the team’s roster, they do not pose an increased risk of harm to opponents and would not provide the team with a significant competitive advantage.

Board president Robert Tellish and Superintendent Alan Fritz did not respond to requests for comment about the proposed policies.

Danielle Guarascio, an attorney with the law firm Weiss Burkardt Kramer, the district’s solicitor, told the Post-Gazette on Monday that an in-depth review of the policies will likely start in the new year. She noted that they were written with the help of the Independence Law Center, a conservative Christian firm that is an arm of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which is representing the district, along with its solicitor, on legal and policy issues recently introduced.

“The board introduced policies aimed at promoting an environment of mutual respect by providing consistent standards for recordkeeping and addressing students, providing a process for accommodations, and recognizing parental authority to make health decisions for their children,” Jeremy Samek, senior counsel at Independence Law Center, said in a statement. “The board also introduced policies that provide separation of multi-user privacy facilities and athletic teams based on sex. These policies provide reasonable accommodations to benefit all students while still protecting the purpose for which women’s sports and separate multi-user privacy facilities exist.”

Pushback

For South Side, the proposed policies seemingly re-spark culture wars at that began when school directors created the nineperson pronoun committee to research a potential policy on preferred names and pronouns for transgender and nonbinary students.

The committee was created months after hundreds of community members attended an October 2022 school board meeting advocating for the return of biology and anatomy teacher Daren Cusato, who was suspended after sending an email to staff stating that he could not use students’ preferred pronouns because of his religious beliefs. His email was in response to a memo from the superintendent saying that teachers can use students’ preferred pronouns.

At the end of the three-hour meeting, the school board voted to suspend the memo until a policy could be developed. Mr. Cusato was reinstated.

During the committee’s short stint it heard legal perspectives from the district solicitor and the Independence Law Center. Two pastors were also tasked with answering questions about transgender children.

But the meetings created tension in the small community before the committee was disbanded, leading to heated debates, with some calling the gatherings “public trials.” And now, Ms. Moon with the Education Law Center said, the district is opening itself up to legal challenges.

“Any district that enacts policies like this are inviting legal challenges because it is discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity,” Ms. Moon said. “And we’ve seen in some other publicized cases like Central Bucks how expensive that can be for school districts.”

Central Bucks School District in Bucks County this year faced backlash after directors barred school staff from using students’ preferred names and pronouns without parental permission. The district, which received help from the Independence Law Center, a USA Today Network investigation found, is now grappling with $1.75 million in legal bills tied to an anti-LGBTQ discrimination investigation.

Central Bucks was one of several Pennsylvania districts to consider pronoun policies this year. And 508 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in states across the country this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

At South Side, Ms. Moon said that there is no basis in law for providing a student’s sex for school records or providing an original birth certificate as laid out in the proposed student records policy.

And she said that the policy around bathrooms and locker rooms at South Side “is discrimination on the basis of gender identity.” She referenced a Third Circuit Court of Appeals case that found students could use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identity. She added that student participation in athletics are also protected under Title IX — a 1972 law, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities — and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.

“It’s really alarming to see school boards politicizing, targeting particular populations of kids when it’s their job to protect the learning environment for all students,” Ms. Moon said.

South Side’s next work session is scheduled for Jan. 3 with a voting session Jan. 17.

Attorney Danielle Guarascio noted that the policies were written with the help of the Independence Law Center, a conservative Christian firm that is an arm of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which is representing the district, along with its solicitor, on legal and policy issues recently introduced.