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 5:52 pm

Commenter: Justin Leach

Absolutely opposed - this will hurt kids, full stop.

This is absolutely ludicrous. Any policy which removes protections from an already at-risk group is inhumane and deliberately damaging. LGBTQ youth are already at elevated risk for suicide, with transgender or non-binary youth facing even greater risks. Compounded further, youth facing identity-based discrimination (including parental rejection or even attempts to “change” them) have an even further elevated risk level.

Ask one basic question: which parents are the ones least likely to already know what’s going on in the lives of gender-questioning children, the uncertainties they’re facing and the steps forward to help them approach life in the way that best suits them?

The answer is, of course, the parents who are least likely to be supportive in the face of that information - the parents who want to impose their will on their children, who believe that they can bully or threaten or worse in order to stop their child from seeking answers and exploring their identity.

That’s what makes this policy so dangerous - it targets the kids who will be hurt the most by it, and deliberately so. The playbook is the same as it always has been - target the vulnerable minorities and try to keep them in check as you establish rules that say they can’t exist where you are, or if they have to exist, create limits to how they can exist, and make it easier to abuse them verbally, socially, or even physically.

That’s what this really comes down to: this policy removes safeguards from some of the children in our community. You literally cannot deny that because that’s what it says on the box. If you support this policy, you don’t get to suggest that this is a misrepresentation of the facts - you have to own up to the idea that you believe it is fair and just that these kids be given less respect and deserve less dignity than their peers.

You have to acknowledge that this will hurt kids.

CommentID: 149448