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 10:29 pm

Commenter: Joe Cobb, City Council, Roanoke, VA

Honor our Transgender Students by Protecting Their Rights

This Spring I became aware of a transgender student who had one simple request: to have their chosen name read aloud during graduation. Though state law requires that a diploma can only be issued in a student's "legal" name, there is no restriction on a transgender student asking that their chosen name, the name that honors who they are and are becoming, be read aloud. Through extraordinary advocacy, including their loving parent who stepped up in support (though that was questionable at one point) and numerous friends and mental health advocates, when the student walked across the stage, their chosen name was read aloud and I had the honor of shaking their hand and congratulating them. I will never forget the moment.

Imagine if this had not been the case.

We cannot turn back the protections currently offered our transgender students. To do so will lead to increased risk of depression, mental health struggles, and even suicide. Transgender students already face extreme risks just entering schools - "can I use the bathroom safely?", "can I participate in student athletics?", "will the school support me when my parents have kicked me out of the house and school is the only "safe" place I can turn?" "even if my parents are loving and accept me and my journey, can I trust my school to do the same?", "will I be bullied because I choose to identify by my chosen name and pronouns?" "will our local school board support my rights as a transgender student to have a safe learning environment to excel?" "will I have access to the services I need, along with my family to make this transitional journey into my wholeness safely?"

Over the past two years, as the model policies for transgender students were discussed and debated in school board meetings across the state, the bravest of all citizens to show and speak their truth were and are those who are living it - our transgender students and, in many cases their loving parents. In many cases, these students bore the solitary burden of sharing their lived experiences in dens of lions - hostile spaces that even the bravest of people may have scurried from - yet they stood their ground, shared their courageous stories, and reminded us that authenticity, wholeness and the audicity to be and become who we are meant to be is the greatest educational and loving experience of one's life.

Stop the reversal of these policies before we lose our beloved transgender children to wiles of oppressive and politically manupalitive policies hidden under the guise of parental rights.

Our transgender students deserve the best - and we must deliver - not only for them, but for those yet to come our way. If we don't model now what it means to create a free and safe space for transgender students to become who they are meant to be, we will have succumbed to the very hostility we say we despise.

This is our opportunity to honor our transgender students - their love, their integrity, their courage, their respect, and their willingness to simply and beautifully be who they are and are becoming.

CommentID: 202513