Posted on 08/08/2017 10:45:50 AM PDT by Lorianne
After facing a lawsuit over its treatment of a kindergartener who identifies as transgender, a nationally recognized public charter school in Minnesota has agreed to adopt a far-reaching inclusionary policy.
In the settlement, the school promised to establish a gender inclusion policy that doesnt allow parents to opt out based on religious or conscience objections, and also not [to] call parents or guardians attention to the policy.
The agreement ends a 16-month legal battle between Nova Classical Academy and David and Hannah Edwards, parents of a child who was born male but presents as a girl.
The Edwardses filed a complaint against Nova Classical Academy, in St. Paul, Minnesota, claiming the school failed to protect their child and other gender nonconforming and transgender students at Nova from persistent gender-based bullying and hostility.
They also claimed the school denied their child the ability to undergo a gender transition at Nova in a safe and timely way.
Their lawsuit, filed March 24, 2016, said the school violated two laws, the Minnesota Human Rights Act and the St. Paul Human Rights Ordinance.
Gender Justice, a nonprofit legal and advocacy organization for LGBT individuals, represented the Edwardses in the suit against Nova Classical Academy.
The school initially denied the allegations, but Gender Justice announced Monday that both parties had reached an agreement through a confidential mediation process.
In addition to committing to revise its gender inclusion policies to protect and respect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, Nova Classical Academy agreed to pay damages of $120,000 to Hannah and David Edwards and their minor child, H.E., Gender Justice said in a press release.
Nova Classical Academy is a K-12 public charter school that enrolls 920 students. Based on the 2013-14 school year, U.S. News and World Report ranked its upper school as the No. 1 high school in Minnesota and the No.16 high school in the nation.
The Daily Signal covered fallout from the case last year, quoting parents who objected to the proposed gender inclusion policies.
According to Gender Justice, the policy changes at Nova Classical Academy are already underway.
The child in question, however, now attends a different school, apparently as a first-grader.
According to the press release, the terms to which Nova Classical Academy agreed state:
Gender-Neutral School Uniforms
Nova will remove descriptions of disallowed clothing that includes language regarding exposing the midriff and skimpy tank tops and simply bar any clothing not allowed under Novas school uniform guidelines.
Nova will add a cross reference to its gender inclusion policy in the uniform guidelines.
Nova will eliminate gendered uniform policies and make all approved uniform items available without regard to gender.
Opt-Out Not Allowed
Nova will not adopt any gender policy that allows parents to opt out of requirements in the gender inclusion policy because of objections based on religion or conscience.
Nova will not call parents or guardians attention to policy or law allowing them to opt out of specific instruction regarding gender inclusion.
Professional Development
Nova will provide professional development for all staff on supporting gender diverse students, by Welcoming Schools or another national LGBT organization that specializes in providing schoolwide training to help staff respond to bias-based bullying and create gender inclusive classroom environments by the close of the 2018-2019 school year.
Nova will ensure that all staff receive such training at least once every three years through 2025.
Why did they keep their child at that school then, when any other school would have not had a problem with their demands?
Where are the Medical Doctors and Psychologists who should be fighting against this insanity? How do we get to a place such as this where people will indulge this lunatic form of child abuse and no Doctors will speak out about it?
This will put all classical and parochial schools on notice as to be careful who they let in.
Actually there is s whole branch of pediatrics doing just that. Headed by s pediatrician from Johns Hopkins
Most homosexuals were sexually molested as children.
They seek to normalized their behavior to attain easier access to MOLEST YOUR CHILDREN!
>https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/deceit-and-lies-we-have-been-told-on-homosexuality<
>http://www.citizenlink.com/2010/06/17/childhood-sexual-abuse-and-male-homosexuality/<
I have done a lot of counseling with men who struggle with same-sex attraction. Some have been in the lifestyle, others have battled with lust and pornography. I would estimate that in three-fourths of the cases, there was some sort of sexual abuse or misconduct that formed a powerful memory which contributed to the struggle. (3)
Makes you wonder of those running the school wanted this to begin with.
It ought to be an avalanche of Doctors condemning this, not just a few.
“Where are the Medical Doctors and Psychologists who should be fighting against this insanity? “
Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a mental disorder that merits treatment, that sex change is biologically impossible, and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.
This is no longer simply Marxist infiltration and take over, this is a victory lap over America, virtually a Satanic one.
They are destroying the Western family, children, and American re-population of people, kill off our traditions.
The Pill was the shot heard around the world to stop the West, Christianity, and our re-population numbers. How did we think our enthusiasm for the pill was going to end?
Truly a “duh” moment.
It is but when does any profession or majority matter on this stuff
I agree, as evidenced by the fact that the kid no longer attends the school.
I fault the school for not going down fighting, cause they're going down anyway.
Parents who choose to put their kids in places like this aren't going to stand for their kids to be exposed to this kind of mindless BS.
The school should have spent every dollar they have fighting this as far as it took.
Caving or apologizing to liberals only invites more abject and extreme caving and apologizing across the board.
Liberalism is a one way ratchet for evil.
And why aren’t these parents, two pathetic excuses for human beings, not under arrest for child abuse?
I’d have my kids out of that cowardice factory so fast it would blow the ivy off the walls.
Like a kindergartner has even the vaguest sense of gender or sexuality.
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