The public school district of Fairfax County, Virginia is now forbidding teachers from informing the parents of students whenever their children decide to “change” their genders at school.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) has ordered all teachers, administrators, and other staff to not seek parents’ permission when their students ask to use a restroom or locker room that is designated for the opposite gender. Students will also be permitted to change their names on campus, and choose whether they wish to “identify as male, female, or nonbinary.”
The new instructions were revealed in screenshots of a mandatory faculty training module which was leaked to the press, depicting a series of questions with multiple-choice answers, with the “correct” answers affirming that parental permission would not be sought by the school.
In one such question, employees are asked: “Parent permission is required for which of the following?” The four possible answers were: “A student requests that the teacher call him by his chosen name in class;” “a student requests to use the locker room that corresponds with her identified gender;” “a student requests the use of a private bathroom;” and “none of the above.” A red check mark is displayed next to the “none of the above” option, indicating that to be the school’s preferred answer.
There has been a rise in such public school policies throughout the country seeking to exclude parents from gender-related issues concerning their own children, with counties in northern Virginia becoming ground zero for the debate. In nearby Loudoun County, a male student who “identified” as a female raped a female student in a bathroom; he faced no punishment from the school and was quietly transferred to another school in the district, where he sexually assaulted another female student, at which point he was charged and convicted in juvenile court.
In June, a Fairfax County School Board meeting was overwhelmingly attended by parents who protested the district’s new rule dictating that students in fourth grade and above be suspended for using the “wrong” pronouns in reference to certain classmates.
Parents in the district have since set up their own “shadow board” to monitor and refute the county school board’s latest policies and declarations. Its first meeting was held opposite the district’s meeting on Thursday, and saw parents talk about recent sexual assault lawsuits against the district, as well as sex education possibly changing to accomodate so-called “transgender” students.
“It is unconscionable that even with plummeting standardized test scores and record-level teacher vacancies in Fairfax County Public Schools, board members remain hyper-focused on politicizing education,” said Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a Fairfax mother of three and shadow board member. “This recent ‘gender-inclusive’ training, meant to indoctrinate teachers and keep parents from knowing critical information about their own children, is irresponsible and borderline criminal.”
Legal action is already being taken against multiple school districts across the country for such practices. Luke Berg, deputy counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said that “policies like this violate parents’ constitutional right to raise their kids.”
“We are currently suing two Wisconsin school districts over similar policies, and I’m aware of roughly 10 other lawsuits around the country on the same topic, including two in Virginia,” Berg continued, “one against the Harrisonburg City school district and another against Loudoun County Public Schools.”