Dear VDOE:

As a public school  parent, I am terribly concerned that your draft policy grossly infringes on parental rights to know what's going on with their children, is harmful to children identifying as trans, and is incredibly insensitive to ethnic minorities.  Arlington, Virginia (where my kids are in school) drafted its transgender policy with similar exclusive language about providing parents information about their children.  I am comfortable with where Arlington landed - namely, by making ample accommodations for children identifying as transgender but not impeding parents from knowing how their own children expressing themselves at school. It is A SIGNIFICANT OVERREACH for the Commonwealth to so exclude parents in such an egregious way.  If one of my kids identified as a different gender at school, it should be my right to know about something so important going on with them.  Furthermore, your policy suggests that teachers have more rights than parents in the lives of children.  Given that transgender children have such high rates of depression and suicide, it is horrific that you would want to exclude parents in important information about their kids.  A parent is the first line in suicide prevention; your policy may create horrible situations by specifically excluding parents.  Plus, it seems so harmful to kids' mental health to encourage these children to live with a dual reality between home and school.  Furthermore, while I am left-leaning, my kids go to school here in zip code 22204 with so many conservative Muslim families.  This policy needs to consider the needs of ethnic minorities that yes, may have different views about gender, but should still have rights to parent according to their creed.  Asking a child to wear a hijab (while no, is not something I will ever do) should not be a reason to call CPS.  Rather, counseling and mediation for a whole family should be the answer.

Please revise this draft with something more reasonable.