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  10:26 pm
Commenter: Claire Sparks, Virginia Commonwealth University

Incalculable Harm for Political Gain
 

It's so disgusting and hypocritical that because these conservatives can't trust their own children to communicate with them, they'll call upon big government to police and report on how they act at school. Using the power of the government to strip our youth of the small amount of autonomy this society affords them, all so parents can try and bully and abuse trans-ness out of their children. It reeks of cruelty and is absent of any compassion. It will cause incalculable harm for queer youth across the state. It will undoubtedly push many of them to take their own lives. And for what? A fifth place finish in the Iowa caucus? 

This policy has no place in polite society and should never be enacted. Trans identity is not some political choice. It is a fundamental and immutable part of our identities. Let trans youth be themselves. There is an unending joy being able to live true to oneself. It's something every person should be able to experience in its fullest. A government who's founding document enshrines the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right endowed to us from our creator, a government dedicated to the ideals of liberty, a government for the people has no place enacting such premeditated harm on our youth.

CommentID: 202491