CHESAPEAKE — Chesapeake School Board has begun the process of potentially changing policy that would prohibit teachers and staff from using and sharing their preferred pronouns when those pronouns don’t match their sex assigned at birth.
Chesapeake School Board met Monday to discuss several policy changes, including a few changes to professional and student conduct when it comes to the use of preferred pronouns. A vote on the proposed policy changes is expected at the board’s next meeting, scheduled for Dec. 8.
The proposed change would apply to the “professional conduct” section of the Chesapeake Public Schools policy manual. If approved, it would add language that refrains all employees from “compelling any staff member to address any employee or refer to any employee in a manner that violates the staff member’s constitutionally protected rights.”
Additionally, it would also prohibit employees from “providing to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.”
Under the “employee-student relations” portion of the manual, the proposed language would also bar employees from compelling “any student to address any employee or refer to any employee in a manner that violates the student’s constitutionally protected rights.”
It’s unclear what prompted the proposed policy changes, but board clerk Angie Smith said in the meeting it was a request from the board. Board member Malia Huddle, who said she was opposed to the changes, asked that it be made part of the action agenda for a vote rather than the consent agenda where it can be approved with a consensus.
“(We) as school board members have a duty to ensure the safety and well being of all of our students and all of our employees,” Huddle said. “(Schools) are not, as many note, a place for indoctrination as some would allege. They are also not a place for invalidation of our fellow humans.”
Vice Chair Kim Scott was the only other board member to discuss the proposed policy change, vowing to vote in support.
“I do believe that coexistence and respect for everyone is possible without forcing others to participate in gender ideology and forced pronouns,” Scott said. “It’s not kind or respectful to refer to students or staff or any individual as bigots or homophobes because they choose not to participate.”
Attendance at Monday’s meeting was sparse, but several of the half dozen speakers opposed the policy changes, including Chesapeake resident Gwendolyn Fite, a transgender woman and retired Naval officer. A representative from Pride in the ‘Peake, which focuses on family-friendly LGBTQ pride events, also spoke in opposition, as well as a representative from the Chesapeake Education Association labor union.
Fite said transgender teachers and students deserve basic respect.
“We are who we are. We cannot pray it away. We cannot plead it away,” Fite said. “Why, I ask, are grown adults so interested in inflicting intentional pain on others? Disrespect has consequences, real consequences. Transgender people who do not receive equal treatment are three times higher to attempt suicide than transgender people that are treated equally.”
Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com
