Virginia Regulatory Town Hall View Comments

Department of Education

State Board of Education

Guidance Document Change: Every day, throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, educators and school leaders work to ensure that all students have an opportunity to receive a high-quality education. As a part of that work, educators strive to meet the individual needs of all students entrusted to their care, and teachers work to create educational environments where all students thrive. The Virginia Department of Education (the “Department”) recognizes that each child is a unique individual with distinctive abilities and characteristics that should be valued and respected. All students have the right to attend school in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, or bullying. The Department supports efforts to protect and encourage respect for all students. Thus, we have a collective responsibility to address topics such as the treatment of transgender students with necessary compassion and respect for all students. The Department also fully acknowledges the rights of parents to exercise their fundamental rights granted by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children. The Code of Virginia reaffirms the rights of parents to determine how their children will be raised and educated. Empowering parents is not only a fundamental right, but it is essential to improving outcomes for all children in Virginia. The Department is mindful of constitutional protections that prohibit governmental entities from requiring individuals to adhere to or adopt a particular ideological belief. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees religious freedom and prohibits the government from compelling speech that is contrary to an individual’s personal or religious beliefs. The Department embarked on a thorough review of the Model Policies Guidance adopted on March 4, 2021 (the “2021 Model Policies”). The 2021 Model Policies promoted a specific viewpoint aimed at achieving cultural and social transformation in schools. The 2021 Model Policies also disregarded the rights of parents and ignored other legal and constitutional principles that significantly impact how schools educate students, including transgender students. With the publication of these 2022 Model Policies (the “2022 Model Policies”), the Department hereby withdraws the 2021 Model Policies, which shall have no further force and effect. The Department issues the 2022 Model Policies to provide clear, accurate, and useful guidance to Virginia school boards that align with statutory provisions governing the Model Policies. See Code of Virginia, § 22.1-23.3 (the “Act”). Significantly, the 2022 Model Policies also consider over 9,000 comments submitted to the Department during the public comment period for the 2021 Model Policies.

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9/27/22 10:12 am

Commenter: David E

Allowing Teacher Discretion

The 2022 Model Policies as written make dangerous assumptions about the stability and safety of individual homes across the Commonwealth of Virginia, and deny educators the ability to leverage their own expertise about how to support children in the best, safest way.

We as parents must acknowledge that, while rare, gender dysphoria is real among people all over the world, and that, without the proper levels of support, young people susceptible to anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, and suicide. Denying these young peoples' challenges does not eliminate them, it only makes feelings of shame and isolation more dangerous.

I am sympathetic to parents who feel that this policy rights the wrongs of the 2021 Model Policies, and feel that those directives placed teachers and administrators as a wedge between parents and their children. In stable, loving households with parents ready to work with love and care as their kids try to solidify their sense of identity and self, engaging families and requiring their support makes sense.

However, no matter the school district, I am certain that virtually every commenter can remember, whether in their own life or in one of their classmates, a family that was defined by instability, neglect, violence, substance abuse and/or bigotry. These policies reject the reality that there are some students who have to essentially raise themselves, who have to live functionally independent lives even as teens. These are young people who cannot reasonably expect their parents can support them as they try to understand their own gender identity, even if they would support them.

And I believe that this is where the Model Policies fail. Teachers, staffers, and administrators are experienced experts who have seen all sorts of children from all sorts of places who need all sorts of things. While my parents were and remain positive forces for good in my life, I remember teachers who affirmed my passions, challenged my philosophies, and had conversations with me that my parents simply weren't equipped to have. Simply put, these teachers have more experience than us as parents, and we as a society should trust their judgment when it comes to affirming our children and determining whether parents are in the proper position to be a part of that team in this aspect of children's lives.

We demand our school systems provide the physical, emotional and intellectual support necessary to ensure our children thrive in this world. We make those demands not only because it is more convenient, so that we can tend to our offices or farms while someone else handles education, but because in some or many instances these teachers and administrators have the training, experience and resources to do better for our children than we can.

Recommending that teachers engage parents when a child is redefining their gender is a sensible practice. Requiring them to do so is simply too dangerous. I oppose these policies, and hope that the Governor's Office and the Department of Education will amend them moving forward.

CommentID: 145833