The Fairfax County superintendent’s decision to defy Virginia’s newly released policy on transgender students isn’t sitting well with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The governor’s office said the Fairfax County School Board is “expected to follow the law” after Superintendent Michelle Reid said the district would continue to address students by their preferred names and pronouns and allow them to use facilities “consistent with their gender identity.”
“The law requires the Virginia Department of Education to provide model policies and requires school boards to adopt policies consistent with those provided by the Department,” Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said in a Wednesday statement.
“The Fairfax County Public Schools policies diverge from VDOE model policy guidance and perpetuate a false notion that FCPS knows what’s better for a child than a child’s parent,” she said. “The Fairfax County school board is expected to follow the law.”
The response came a day after Ms. Reid issued a statement rejecting the department’s “Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity and Respect for All Students and Parents in Virginia Public Schools,” which was published last month.
“We have concluded our detailed legal review and determined that our current Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) policies are consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws as required by the new model policies,” Ms. Reid said in the Tuesday post.
Other school districts have come out in opposition to the state policy, but the outright refusal to comply by Virginia’s largest school district comes as the strongest challenge yet to the 16-page guidance.
The district’s policies on “gender expansive and transgender students” fly in the face of the department’s guidance, which requires educators to use students’ legal names or nicknames and sex-based pronouns unless their parents instruct the school in writing to use different names or pronouns.
The state’s model policy also requires students to use facilities based on their sex.
Schools must make single-user bathrooms available to all students. Accommodations for overnight field trips must also be based on sex, as well as placement on athletic teams.
In addition, the state guidance prohibited schools from implementing policies that “encourage or instruct teachers to conceal material information about a student from the student’s parent, including information related to gender.”
Ms. Reid said Fairfax students would “continue to have their privacy respected regarding gender expansive or transgender status, legal name, or sex assigned at birth,” indicating that schools will conceal information about a student’s transgender status from parents unless the student says otherwise.
“All students have a right to privacy in FCPS facilities or while participating in FCPS sponsored events,” Ms. Reid said. “Any student who has a need or desire for increased privacy, regardless of the underlying reason, shall be provided with reasonable, non-stigmatizing accommodations.”
Parents Defending Education said that the Fairfax superintendent’s response “blatantly defies Governor Youngkin’s guidance.”
“Per usual, leadership at FCPS is more concerned with appeasing liberal activists than they are in ensuring ALL students feel safe in schools and on-campus facilities,” said Michele Exner, senior advisor at Parents Defending Education.
“Superintendent Reid’s recent message regarding Virginia’s transgender policy is completely one-sided and ignores the concerns of hundreds of parents who are rightfully worried about how this policy will impact their daughters,” Ms. Exner said. “The FCPS position potentially forces girls to share their locker rooms, sport fields, and even lodging on field trips with biological males. This is insanity and parents should not stand for it.”
The Spotsylvania County school board voted Tuesday to adopt transgender policies consistent with the state guidance.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.