Board adopts transgender policy after parents raise bathroom safety issue

Posted at 9:30 a.m. on November 18, 2021

The Brillion News

WRIGHTSTOWN - After hearing from nine speakers discussing the issue of school accommodations for transgender students, the Wrightstown School Board, on Wednesday, November 17, passed a revision to an existing policy - with the revisions adopting as policy provisions that allow those identifying as transgender to use the bathrooms of their choice.

The original policy was one paragraph long and addressed only discrimination. The revised policy added 11 new paragraphs and eight sub-paragraphs - all about transgender accommodations.

The published agenda, under "Approve Policy Review/Revisions" noticed #1000 Nondiscrimination and Equal Opportunity Policy Revisions. There was no mention of any transgender issue in the agenda noticing the meeting.

[ << Photo shows school board and a portion of the citizen gallery listening to a speaker. ~ Ed Byrne/BN]

Citizens spoke to the topic in the board's open forum - which lasted more than an hour - and then left before the vote to revise the policy.

The majority of speakers opposed transgender accommodations that would restrict students to the use of bathrooms intended for person of the biological gender.

One teacher also spoke and called on the school board to ban any future comments about gender identity issues during the board's open forum sessions.

A retired school teacher called on faculty members to take politics out of their classrooms and to teach students rather than indoctrinating them.

Many of the citizens and parents who spoke emphasized the safety involved when a biological male uses a communal bathroom labeled as being for females.

This is a brief story on the school board meeting's content related to transgender accommodations and school policy. A complete story will appear in the November 25 print edition of THE BRILLION NEWS.