Citing developments in federal court, Evanston Township High School officials canceled a committee meeting this week to discuss the district’s policy on transgender students.
The policy meeting was scheduled for Thursday and District 202 Board of Education President Pat Savage-Williams said last week that the board would likely be presented with a new policy at their regular meeting slated for Monday, Aug. 8.
“Due to recent legal developments in federal court, we are going to delay this policy committee meeting,” wrote Lisa De La Fuente, assistant to superintendent, in an email.
Savage-Williams said the district opted to cancel the meeting and hold off on adopting a policy at the advice of their attorney. She said they were advised to wait for more clarity on the issue from state officials before moving ahead with their own district-wide transgender student policy. The district currently has policies in place to protect students from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Savage-Williams said.
She said “making sure educators are able to have conversations around equity” remains a deeply important goal.
President Barack Obama’s administration issued a directive in May requiring school districts to treat transgender students according to their gender identity as soon as a parent or guardian informs the district that the student’s identity differs from previous records or representation. The directive states that transgender students must be offered protections under the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools.
In an interview in May, District 202’s director of communications, Evangeline Semark, said ETHS allows transgender students access to “facilities and school-sponsored programs that are consistent with the student’s gender identity,” including locker rooms and bathrooms.
Semark said in the May interview that the district had been working for several months to develop an official transgender student policy in consultation with legal experts.
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The district worked with the law firm Franczek Radelet, the gender and sex development program at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and the Illinois Safe School Alliance “to provide staff with the professional development they need to support and accommodate students who identify as transgender,” Semark said in May.
Over the last several months, nearly half of the country’s states have filed lawsuits against the Obama administration over its directive.
Additionally, a case involving a transgender teen in Virginia who sued the Gloucester County School Board also marks the first time the issue has been brought to the attention of the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, a federal district court ordered the school board to allow the transgender teen – Gavin Grimm – to use the boys restroom. The school board requested last month that the Supreme Court grant an emergency stay of the order, which the court confirmed this week.
According to the ETHS website, parents of transgender students under age 18 must write a letter to the district requesting a change to the student’s first name and gender in the high school’s student information system. Those over 18 can write the letter themselves. Parents who are enrolling a new transgender student are advised to provide the district with their name and gender identification.
Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.