Posted on 05/13/2015 9:27:11 AM PDT by wagglebee
FALLS CHURCH, VA, May 12, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Hundreds of parents accused Fairfax County School Board (FCSB) members of endangering their children and caving to the Obama administration as the school board voted to allow transgender teens to use the locker rooms and bathrooms of the opposite sex.
The new policy may also allow transgender teachers to show their gender dysphoria openly in the classroom.
The motion to add "gender identity" as a protected class– which passed 10-1, with one abstentation – was sparked by the Obama administration's threat to deny the district $42 million in federal funding.
According to FoxNews.com and The Washington Post, that would amount to 1.7 percent of the education budget in the nation's largest school district.
The blackmail and the council's apparent secrecy led to outrage among parents who attended the school board's meeting last Thursday, where opponents outnumbered supporters at least eight-to-one.
Several school board members argued that there was no attempt to go around parents, with one member saying that the board acted within its normal routes of communication – a notice three weeks before the vote, discussion at the board's normal meeting two weeks before the vote, and then a vote last week.
Board member Megan McLaughlin said that there was no need for a larger debate, because this was an update to the protected classes of the school system, and not a new policy creating favored groups. McLaughlin also said that school operations would not change in any way as a result of the new policy.
The change was oreceded by a legal opinion from Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, who in March said that school boards have the authority to include sexual orientation and gender identity as special classes. But it was the threat of a loss of federal education dollars that provided the impetus for several school board members.
President Obama's threat to deny children federal money was in keeping with his administration's new interpretation of the 1972 Title IX law.
Last April, the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights decided that gender identity is a protected class, and that Title IX, which only bars sexual discrimination, will now be treated as though it “extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity.”
The FCSB meeting was often heated, with numerous comparisons made to race-based discrimination, including slavery, by board members. After the vote, LGBT activist and Equality Virginia board member Catherine Read told LifeSiteNews.com that "if people really clung to these things, we'd still have slavery, women still wouldn't have the vote, and this would still be a black high school." Read said the issue is "about civil rights."
Multiple board members accused parents who opposed the change of acting out of "fear."
The only board member to oppose the measure, Elizabeth Schultz, argued that implementation costs could harm the school district, which is running a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars. Its supporters countered that losing federal money would also hurt students.
Supporters frequently noted that adding gender identity to protected classes would change "nothing" at schools, to which Schultz and many parents asked, if that were true, why the change was necessary.
Schultz – who made a motion that the gender identity change be pushed back until October so that the board could investigate the costs associated with the change, as well as whether such a change is necessary, and how schools could adjust if the board backed the gender identity addition – walked out of the meeting when the final transgender recognition measure was passed without such consideration.
Schultz told LifeSiteNews.com that the board was wrong to postpone analyzing the regulations until the policy went into effect.
"Well, [implementation] happens at the end of September," Schultz told LifeSiteNews. "What difference does it make if you say you want to look at the regulations then?"
Many parents reminded school board members that last week's vote would be remembered when the board members ran for re-election.
The full school board meeting can be seen here.
Yes, that very sort of incident.
Good point.
The schools are zoned in such a way to effectively segregate the lower income students from everyone else. The wealthier schools will typically be newer, nicer, have more competent teachers, etc. This way the libs can brag about sending their kids to public schools, but escape most of the negative consequences.
A few years ago, these people would be arrested for 'contributing to the delinquency of a minor' and they should be.
You’re right. It’s all about money and the government bribing the schools.
Once the government give you money you have lost control.
Few people vote in school board elections, which are often separate elections. Most who do vote just back a familiar name, not knowing of the rampant liberalism on such boards.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that the regime has no authority to withhold funds under threat. Another case involving Medicaid and Florida is before the Supreme Court.
Since the regime doesn’t care what the Supreme Court says, here’s an idea. SOMEBODY made the threat. Their name is on a piece of paper somewhere. Swear out a warrant for that person’s arrest - defying the SC ruling, making a terrorist threat, jaywalking, spitting on the sidewalk, etc. Get a warrant to search their home, their office, their car, their boat, etc. Keep it up until they back off.
I wanted to post a smiley on that comment because I was posting to you, but it didn't seem prudent... :-)
It’s amusing, but it’s not. These are real young people being screwed up by sicko adults.
Yes, not trying to entice you or anyone to laugh at such a travesty. Just always glad to run into you on a thread.
“If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane,” as the sage Jimmy Buffett said.
Always happy to see you, too!
Any Muslims in the school? Let them protest that this is against their religion.
The WDC area is replete with well-paid LIB idiots. They reap what they sow. Hahahahaha!
Several years ago the FCPS Board “dealt” with issues at “failing”
South Lakes High (much lower testing performance relative to the rest of the county, alleged gang and drug problems) by going through the neighboring Oakton High and Chantilly High zones, identifying the homes/pockets of high performing students and gerrymandering them into the South Lakes zone.
Board got really ticked when parents of a lot of the designated kids threatened to undercut the effort and put their children into local Catholic schools.
The issue quickly disappeared off the media’s radar, can’t remember what actually happened.
But....Parents who know how to effectively “after school”, “pre-school” and find tutoring figure out ways to defend their kids from the machinations of government school functionaries.
This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)
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A teenage girl not wanting to disrobe in front of a group of teenage boys who have decided to say that they are "transgender" has NOTHING to do with racism.
Aside from the fact that it absolutely sickens me that people play the race card at every perceived offense, this is just so wrong on so many levels.
Public schools have way outlived their usefulness.
Every parent there who opposes it ought to pull their kids and homeschool and then the boards complaint about funding will sound pathetic when they lose it all for all the students who aren't going there any more.
I would LOVE to see the public school defenders defend THIS one.....
Life was so easy when there were only two sexes.
But now, with at least a dozen sexes (and more springing up every week) the only solution is to provide each student with a private changing room.
The cost?
Oh, that doesn’t matter because the Federal Government will pick up the tab, and it won’t cost the schools anything.
Very true.
My experiences with FCPS, as well as that of other family members, is that it really isn’t all that great of a school system. They just have a lot of money. So they focus on catering to the highest and lowest ends of the educational spectrum, while putting all sorts of wizz-bang technology (SmartBoards everwhere!) into classrooms. The kids in the middle just get pushed along in ways that make sure they do well on the SOLs and other standardized tests, and are guided into the various levels of state universities from early ages. My oldest, who is both very bright and also less-than-motivated, was (I’m convinced) aligned by FCPS in elementary school towards GMU or JMU. Which aren’t, of course, bad schools. The problem I had was in the predestination aspects I thought I was seeing.
I once did a Google search on my screen name, “wintertime”, and found that someone had made a special link to a page listing all of my major points against the government's K-12 price-fixed cartel schools. They, of course, added snarky comments of their own. Wow! Imagine that! My own Google page! :-)
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