Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
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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10/26/22  9:54 pm
Commenter: Anonymous

Strongly oppose this policy
 

Transgender students deserve the same rights and freedoms as everyone else – the ability to be recognized for who they are and how they perceive themselves. Thee Model Policies will hurt transgender students’ rights to present their true selves to the world. Youngkin claims he is protecting parents’ rights, but he is only promoting the interests of parents who oppose their children’s identities. He is limiting the rights of parents who support those identities, as these parents would for the first time have to present legal documentation to ensure that their children’s gender identity and choice of name would be recognized at school. And Youngkin is eviscerating the rights of transgender students themselves.  

Adoption of anti-transgender laws and regulations can inflict significant, measurable, and immediate harm to the health and mental well-being of transgender youth; it is not a minor adjustment to obscure rules. A Washington Post survey shows that Youngkin’s proposals have already struck fear and distress in transgender students throughout the state. Other studies show that anti-transgender laws and regulations increase already high rates of depression and suicide among transgender youth, rates which have already been increasing along with the recent wave of anti-transgender legislation nationally. One report found that in 2021, 42% of transgender youth aged 13-24 years old seriously considered suicide. The proposed Model Policies reflect a cold indifference to the well-being of transgender students and a willingness to inflict cruelty on them for political gain in the culture wars Governor Youngkin so energetically pursues.

Three of the changes to be imposed by Governor Youngkin’s Model Policies have been directly correlated with rates of attempted suicide among transgender youth. Respect for a youth’s pronouns, the ability to change name and gender on legal documents, and access to spaces that affirm their sexual orientation have all been shown to lower rates of attempted suicide among transgender youth. The Governor’s Model Policies would reverse current Virginia regulations protecting all of those rights in school settings. 

 

 

CommentID: 202259