The Chehalis School District could be putting its state funding in jeopardy by not passing a policy that promotes inclusion of its transgender students and disavows harassment against them.
Since February 2020, the district and a small number of others in Washington have been running afoul of state law by failing to implement transgender student policy and procedure in its discrimination prohibition policies. The outline is laid out in RCW 28A.642.080, which was passed by the Legislature in 2019.
The school board at a regular meeting on Tuesday ultimately motioned to table a decision on the policy, which was being considered on first reading, after an at times indignant crowd, concerned with a clause allowing transgender students to choose whichever restroom or locker room they wanted, pushed back.
Through an Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction spokesperson, Sarah Albertson, director of OSPI’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights, said the program is working with districts, including Chehalis, one-on-one to ensure each is in compliance with the new descrimination law.
“A school district that violates chapter 28A.642 RCW may be subject to corrective action and monitoring by OSPI, but sanctions could also include termination of all or part state apportionment or categorical money,” she wrote in a statement.
It’s not currently known how many districts are currently out of compliance, though a majority of them have adopted a policy. Albertson said around last fall roughly one-third of all Washington state school districts indicated they had not yet adopted the gender-inclusive policy, but that number has likely shrunk substantially.
Chehalis Superintendent Christine Moloney said she was notified by the Office of Equity and Civil Rights about the noncompliance on May 26. Policy aligned with the law was then added to the school board’s June 15 meeting.
Response From Superintendent Moloney
Speaking with The Chronicle on Friday, Moloney said district staff plan on providing the school board with more specific procedures and staff expectations, with the aid of the district’s legal counsel. She said she will lay out what the district is currently doing to address bullying and discrimination among transgender students and how it relates to the model procedures the district must enact.
Since before the transgender discrimination bill, Senate Bill 5689, was passed in 2019, the district had already been working to address discrimination in-house. The district has a staff member filling the role as “primary contact officer” who receives formal copies of complaints made about transgender discimination and is knowledgeable in relevant policies.
“We have transgender students in our school system and we’ve had them for many years, and our staff just takes care of them,” Moloney said, adding that she doesn’t believe passage of state-mandated policy is “really going to change our procedures at all.”
The discrepancy appears to be just that the district hasn’t codified it in language. Chehalis’ neighbor to the north has had policy adopted for many months now, Centralia Superintendent Lisa Grant confirmed in a text message.
Moloney said she’s confident the school board will adopt school policy to align with Washington state law because it’s their “sworn duty” to follow the law.
“I do believe that it's safe to say they’re going to work together to meet the requirements of this law,” she said.
In order to prevent the district from falling out of policy in a similar fashion and being notified months after, Moloney said she wants to instill a staff-led system to review all state-aligned policies on a regular schedule. She said she’s already been regularly cross-checking new OSPI policy as she’s received them with ones they have in the books.
“It’s a heavy lift if we don’t have staff time to do it, but we’ll find some way to get it done,” she said.
The Policy at Hand
The main policy at hand in Chehalis would aim to create a safe and equitable environment free of discrimination for all students, regardless of gender expression, gender identity or sex — and that includes restrooms and locker rooms.
Transgender students largely haven’t been included under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in public schools, but the Biden Administration’s U.S. Department of Education this week said that those students should be.
The departure from past presidential administrations follows recent Supreme Court rulings that determined Civil Rights Act discriminations in the workplace extend to transgender, gay and lesbian people, PBS News Hour reported.
The Department of Education’s shift on Title IX interpretation could be seen as a standard for transgender student inclusivity. Already this year, many state legislatures have adopted policies banning transgender students from sports and from entering the restrooms of the genders of which they identify with. But Washington state appears to be ahead of the curve by enforcing anti-discrimination laws.
BP 3211, the policy presented earlier this week to the school board, if passed, would have the board “recognize the importance of an inclusive approach toward transgender and gender-expansive students with regards to key terms, communication and the use of names and pronouns, student records, confidential health and education information, communication, restroom and locker room use and accessibility, sports and physical education, dress codes, and other school activities, in order to provide these students with an equal opportunity for learning and achievement.”
The policy proposal also mandates the superintendent appoint a primary contact officer who will participate in at least one mandatory training opportunity offered by OSPI.
“The policy and its procedure will support that effort by facilitating district compliance with local, state and federal laws concerning harassment, intimidation, bullying and discrimination,” reads the board policy.
