Parental-rights law impacting school notification, transgender policies

LANDER—Kathy Hitt had a question for her colleagues on the school board during its meeting last week.

The leaders of Fremont County School District No. 1 were weighing two policy drafts brought by board chair Jared Kail. Dubbed “Transgender Staff Considerations” and “Transgender Student Considerations,” the policies set guidance for district staff’s treatment of transgender students and employees — establishing rules for name and pronoun changes and bathroom use, for example.

In a district that has battled over protected classes and the library books on its shelves , the proposed policies drew a crowd, spurring heated debate over how best to protect vulnerable individuals and a school’s role in gender identity issues. One policy would require staff to use names and pronouns listed on students’ official records.

Hitt pointed out that just 0.6% of Wyoming youth between the ages of 13-17 identify as transgender or nonbinary. Why, she wondered, would a three-page policy be necessary for such a tiny fraction of the population.

“My question to this board is: Given the definition of transphobia, are you then afraid of these students, or do you hate these students?” Hitt asked.

Board member Scott Jensen, a supporter of the drafts, responded by calling her accusation “beyond the pale.”

Chair Kail also pushed back. “These are difficult issues,” he said. “They need leadership. They need, I believe, district policy. And because someone disagrees with you to say it’s because you’re filled with hate, I think that’s disingenuous.”

“I didn’t say you felt that way,” Hitt said, “but that is what transphobia is, and that’s what this policy feels like to me.”

The acrimony is the latest example of how a perceived conflict between parental rights and LGBTQ protections are dividing school communities in Wyoming and across the nation.

The Wyoming Legislature and Gov. Mark Gordon in March passed a new law, Parental rights in education-1 , that required school districts to adopt policies by July 1 “to reinforce the fundamental right of parents and guardians to make decisions regarding the care and control of their children.”

While the law does require parental consent for students to receive instruction in “sexual orientation or gender identity,” it does not stipulate districts make transgender policy.

Kail said his draft policies, though not a direct result of the law, are related to it. The law is vague on what constitutes the kind of information schools need to share with parents, Kail said.

“It basically sort of left it in this amorphous cloud of ‘whatever you think it is,’ and that’s what I don’t like about the legislation,” Kail said. In an email to WyoFile after the meeting, he added that “as a result, how to handle issues surrounding kids that exhibit transgendered behavior has been left in the lap of school boards or, if they fail to act, superintendents, principals, teachers and school counselors.”

Fremont County District No. 1 is among many school districts grappling with how to adhere to the law. Much was under debate during the meeting — what parents are entitled to know, when sharing information crosses the line of harming students, what constitutes bigotry — though both sides claimed to be motivated by the health and wellness of students.

What they didn’t agree on is the appropriate role of adults.

Pronouns and bathrooms

Draft policy JMA , “Student Transgender Considerations,” states the district will recognize a student’s name or gender identity as it is recorded in the official student record. Students’ parents or guardians, or students themselves if they are 18 or older, can make record changes in writing.

Under the draft policy, teachers and staff must use the name and pronouns that match the student’s record. Fellow students, however, have more flexibility — they can use names of their choosing, “as long as those names are appropriate for the school setting.” The policy forbids staff from compelling students to list their own preferred pronouns.

The policy also addresses restroom usage, stating that a student shall be required and allowed, under federal Title IX rules, to use the restroom type that corresponds to the gender identity listed on their student record. Any student uncomfortable with sharing a restroom with a transgender classmate or one with non-conforming gender identity may request in writing alternative bathroom accommodations.

When sharing rooms during overnight stays is required, student cohabitation under the draft policy would be based on biological sex regardless of a student’s recorded gender identity.

The policy would also require school staff to “proactively inform” parents of issues “regarding a student’s gender concerns and self-perception.”

Draft policy GMA , “Staff Transgender Considerations,” mandates district employees address transgender issues with an explicitly neutral stance and only in age-appropriate settings. It also prohibits staff from either encouraging or discouraging a student’s exploration of transgender studies.

When it comes to names, the policy requires staff to refer to fellow staff by monikers “reasonably believed to be the person’s legal name or name of record with FCSD#1.” In the case of pronouns, it allows staff to refer to a colleague “using whatever pronoun the speaker prefers.”

State mandates, federal courts

Wyoming’s parental rights law, which arrived on a tide of conservative support, mandates that school districts notify parents or guardians as soon as practicable if there is “a change in the student’s educational, physical, mental or emotional health or well‑being.”

What the law doesn’t do, Kail said, is make clear that transgender considerations are part of that “well‑being.”

The district already adopted an initial policy to align with the parental rights law by the July 1 effective date, but the additional transgender policies further clarify some of the ambiguity, he said.

The state law caused a lot of heartache in schools as they scrambled to meet the deadline, said Brian Farmer, executive director of Wyoming School Boards Association. “I think many feel that the legislation almost invites litigation,” he said.

The notion of notifying a parent for every “change” in a student’s well-being can vary widely by interpretation, Farmer said. “Go to a junior high school and tell me that that doesn’t happen to almost every kid, not just every day, but multiple times every day.”

Former teacher Sarah Reilley agreed the law is “terrible policy,” and said during the meeting the board doesn’t have to react in this fashion.

“You are in a unique position where you could choose to protect transgender kids instead of attack them again like you are doing with this policy,” she said.

Another school board, Albany County No. 1, drew conflict when it adopted its parental rights policy on a split vote, according to the Laramie Reporter. Laramie County No. 1 School Board, meanwhile, passed a policy without a stir, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

“I think the ideas expressed in the law maybe are not terribly unclear or terribly controversial, it’s how those ideas play out in the practical day-to-day world of a school” that is causing conflict, Farmer said, adding that Wyoming’s districts are trying to ascertain the best path forward.

As they do so, a fight on the federal level has cast Title IX, the 50-year-old law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding, into murky territory.

The​​ U.S. Department of Education in April released a rewrite of Title IX rules that would broaden the focus of sex-based harassment to things like sexual orientation, pregnancy and gender identity.

The rewrite was set to go into effect Aug. 1, but Wyoming and other Republican-led states and conservative groups challenged it in court. On July 3, a federal court barred enforcement of the rewrite while the lawsuit continues.

That injunction has created uncertainty for Wyoming educators on how to proceed with compliance.

In a note to WyoFile after the meeting, Kail said his district has not been building an independent policy that addresses the Biden administration’s Title IX rule expansion. He expects the board will need to amend its transgender policies to conform with future changes to Title IX, he said.

The Wyoming School Boards Association has advised Wyoming districts to put any Title IX policy changes on hold pending a final court decision, Farmer said.

A strained discussion

After Kail introduced the draft policies in Lander, board member Karen Harms spoke of a law conference she attended with a fellow trustee.

“They recommended, ‘Do not do policies like this, because it will open your district up to litigation,’ and that is a big concern,” she said. “I believe we need to be focused on the education of our students, not spending all of our time and money fighting lawsuits.”

The district already has plenty of guidance in its tagline, she said, which is “be safe, be responsible, be respectful.” Outing an LGBTQ or transgender student, she warned, can force them into crisis. “That is my fear, is that we’re going to have an increase of death by suicides.”

When Harms asked Superintendent Mike Harris if he has received reports of staff encountering these types of issues, he responded that he hasn’t since starting in fall 2023.

Jensen pushed back on Harms, stressing the importance of giving parents the ultimate say-so in their children’s education and health. The policy offers a path for parents or students of age to change their names if they so choose, he said. Students at a heightened risk of suicide need help, he added, and cutting parents out of the loop is unacceptable.

“We shouldn’t lie to them,” he said. He pointed to a high-profile lawsuit in Rock Springs by a family that accuses the school district of hiding their child’s gender transition from them.

In the Lander board room, conversation went back and forth. Policy opponents argued that the school staff already handles these issues in a thorough and caring manner and that students occasionally need a safe space to discuss their problems when they feel their parents are unsupportive.

“Maybe my child decides that they don’t need me at that point, and I’m OK with that,” trustee Aileen Brew said.

“And you might be. Many parents are not OK with that,” Jensen countered.

“But many parents are, and this is our impasse,” Brew said.

“The Wyoming Legislature disagrees,” Kail said. “Our Legislature made it very clear that, from a state perspective, we honor and respect parental notification as a state. You may like it, you may not … but that’s clearly where the state went with this, and what we’re doing is enshrining that in policy JMA and GMA, where they failed to do so and in the fashion that they did so.”

The district’s existing policies, meanwhile, prevent students from engaging in bullying, Jensen said, whether that be for sexual identity or anything else.

Most of the people who spoke during public comment were opposed to the policies, arguing the board is leaning more into culture wars than the real mental health needs of its students and the policies represent a slippery slope of policing students. Former district counselor Bill Lee said these kinds of situations are tailor-made for school counselors, not teachers, to handle.

“You have the staff,” Lee told the board, adding that his goal was always to involve a student’s family.

Violet Tuohy, a Lander high school student, told the board the policies are the kind of thing that taint her mostly positive experience of growing up in the town.

“This is, in my opinion, a step backwards,” she said. “I think you are making this community a pretty negative place for a lot of people.”

Ultimately, the school board did not vote on a first reading of the draft policy. Board members asked to review the previous communication between Kail and the board’s attorney regarding the policies, and the body agreed to put the language into a shared document so that members could make suggestions or edits. A new version will likely return for future consideration.

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