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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10/26/22 1:32 pm

Commenter: Shelley Sperry

Please Do Not Impose This Discrimination Against LGBTQ+ students

I live in Fairfax County and my daughter attended public school here.

I am strongly opposed to the imposition of the new regulation of students' autonomy and discrimination against the rights of LGBTQ+ young people, especially transgender students in Virginia. The new rule uses the 14th Amendment as support for this action, not recognizing that the 14th amendment explicitly sought to guarantee the bodily freedom of formerly enslaved Americans, to support their autonomy and personhood. This is a policy that supports bigotry and harms young people and I truly don't understand how the government of any state can defend such actions. To stop teachers from exercising compassion and respect for their students' choices and requests to use a particular name or pronoun is cruel. To block students' right to freely explore and express their own identities is the opposite of what every school should be doing. Understanding oneself and one's place in a larger community is one essential goal of a well-rounded education, isn't it?Instead, the state seems determined to put new stresses and mandates on teachers, to deny the personhood of students, and to give in to one—just one—particular religion's view of the right way to be in the world. Virginia claims to be the birthplace of religious freedom and tolerance, and now are we the place where it dies?

Please reconsider and strike down this absurd and cruel new set of rules. If you don't, students will experience even more psychological pain than they have endured over the past few years of the pandemic, and some will take their own lives. This is born out in the statistics many other commenters have cited. Why do something you know will harm kids, when you have another path you could follow?

I'm the mother of a recent graduate of Fairfax County Public Schools and still know many wonderful kids, including transgender kids, who are contributing amazing things to their communities. All I can feel now is deep shame at what is happening in our schools today and sadness for all the kids who will attend in the future until this rule is struck down in the courts, which I hope happens as quickly as possible.

CommentID: 198963