Decatur schools seeking input about transgender student policy

Parents raise concerns about district guidelines.

The Decatur Board of Education will gather more public input about how it treats transgender students, after some parents raised concerns about administrative guidelines that let students use bathrooms and locker rooms that match the gender they identity with, among other practices.

This week, board chair Annie Caiola said the board supports instructions Superintendent David Dude issued in 2016 but wants to address privacy concerns.

“The board is committed to ensuring that all students feel safe, supported and valued,” she said, adding that it will review district policy to consider “potential changes” that further that goal.

The board did not set a firm timeline for the work, but it is expected to take several months. Officials signaled they aren’t planning to roll back the policies on transgender students but want to have a public discussion.

Board member Lewis Jones said the board owes it to the community to listen and “see if there are some concerns that can be addressed through appropriate measures.” But he expects the board will adopt a policy that is “largely supportive or entirely supportive of the current practices that have developed through the instructions to staff.”

Vernadette Broyles, a Norcross attorney who represents several parents who take issue with the superintendent’s instructions, said she views the directive as illegal. She said the instructions violate the “constitutionally protected right to bodily privacy of the students” and threaten parents’ rights “to direct the training and the exposure of their children’s bodies to members of the opposite sex,” among other legal problems she’s raised.

She criticized the lack of public input before the superintendent issued the instructions to staff. She said it’s not clear what the board intends to do. “...[T] hey’re saying that they’re supporting their superintendent, but at the same time out the other side of the mouth they’re saying that we’re going to dialogue on this policy,” she said.

A standing-room-only crowd of about 200 people gathered Tuesday for a meeting that featured about three hours of comment from dozens of parents, students, and others.

Some in the audience wore buttons saying “protect trans kids.” Some critical of the superintendent’s instructions wore large yellow stickers that read “Protect privacy, safety, dignity, fairness for all our students.”

In February, the Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidelines that transgender students must be allowed to participate in the activities and use the facilities that match their gender identity regardless of the sex marked on the student’s birth certificate.

Dude, in a blog post written after the federal change, said the district would continue to adhere to its existing policy regarding transgender students. He also reiterated instructions he gave to staff in 2016 that stated transgender students should be allowed to use the restroom and locker room that matches their gender identity and try out for sports teams based on that gender. He also told employees to use the pronoun that students use.

Audrey Long, the mother of a transgender boy who is a high school junior, praised the superintendent’s stance. “We need to make school, of all places, a place of safety where they can just be their true selves and focus on learning,” she said.

An online petition circulated by critics states that the district’s stance upends student privacy, equal opportunities in sports, and parental decision-making.