Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
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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9/28/22  10:50 am
Commenter: Becca Howes-Mischel

Respect and support children's human dignity
 

I strongly oppose this policy, it is unsupported by data about what children (and people generally) need to learn and flourish and it keeps schools from being places where children (and their families) feel respected, safe, and valued. As an educator, I firmly believe that respect for my students, their beliefs and their dignity is essential to my ability to teach them. Respecting someone's belief about themselves (whether it's their gender identity, their political views, or their religion) is not the same as affirming that one shares that belief, yet it is essential to showing them basic human dignity. Public school employees should respect students' right to name themselves, it does not infringe on their own personal liberty. That these policies will cause harm as implemented is supported by extensive research on Trans and non-gender conforming children's psychological well being, there is no such data to support any benefits to implementing them.  

Further, this policy violates the Virginia Human Rights Act and recent United States Supreme Court decisions that state that gender identity is covered by non-discrimination laws. It promotes a narrow definition of gender identity rooted in a conservative Christian view and denies those who do not hold that view from rights to free expression by suppressing the rights of supportive families to name and support their children and teachers to respect students self-expression.

This policy reflects the antithesis of what we teach in schools, that life, liberty, and happiness are the condition of all Americans and not just those that subscribe to a particular religious and political worldview. 

 

 

CommentID: 158912