001you is who knew there was a star in the community about it you are [Music] good evening [Music] good evening and welcome to this board meeting i have a couple of requests right as we begin uh the first is one in light of safety and concern i please ask that you keep this central corridor to the exit as wide as the doorway so if the folks on the aisle could move their chairs and the second is now i'm talking about and you can certainly stand inside the room i apologize that we don't have the space for everyone to stand outside the room i also need to try to keep this doorway open for fire exit as well so if you're in that doorway and you can come inside i appreciate everyone who has turned out
002tonight so i will call this meeting to order attendance nordic here olson here d peterson here jay peterson boss ward here all present thank you please rise and join me for the pledge of allega with liberty and justice for all thank you again uh in our agenda items at this time we have uh visitors to be heard before we move into that section i do want to comment that we will call for public comment on item b of new business the second reading of the policy on gender equity and inclusiveness and i will also call for separate public comment on item d which is a discussion of library book selection as they appear on the agenda the agenda did have a tanger happenings in the interest of time we are not going to have that
003particular report this evening and so at this time i will ask if there are any members of the public who wish to address the board on any issue on the agenda that is not item b or item d and in doing so please note that there will be no action taken on this item and please refrain from using the names of personnel or students in the district [Music] seeing none we'll move on to our approval of the agenda we do have one change to the agenda that i believe was sent out but we'll make the announcement for the public we have an item g which is the hiring of two individuals and since they were not released earlier they are under new business and not part of the consent agenda uh mr alvey are there
004any other changes no none board members any changes okay so i do need a motion to accept the amended agenda adding item g hiring of new personnel motion to approve the agenda by rachel second and jim all in favor signify with saying aye aye aye opposed nay abstentions agenda is approved a second item is the indication of conflicts of interest i've reviewed the agenda and have no conflicts this is rachel i have none jim i have none carol i have none shane i have none very good that moves us on to our consent agenda items this includes the approval of minutes from the past meeting any open enrollments the publish new hires resignations and bills just for the public's knowledge all of the consent agenda items do appear in the minutes so you'll be able
005to see all of this but we don't discuss them each individually are there any items on the consent agenda that anyone wishes to remove and move into new business okay so we need a motion to approve the consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda by carol second second by shane all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye oppose nay abstentions consent items are approved that brings us to unfinished business mr alvey facilities review yes um this evening we're happy to report that we've uh done our first public meeting for the new elementary school we had that on november 1st we had a listening session at the middle school we had a good discussion with the public some staff as well as access with our architect to show some of the upcoming features take
006feedback about the potential building some of its constraints and potentially some of its you know potential for the future needs of the district then on november 5th we also had our building committee do a school visit to harrisburg where we were able to see two of their newest buildings and so our committee members include administrators staff from the district as well as usd faculty and parents and those folks were able to attend and ask questions of the folks in harrisburg about their two latest buildings and november 9th tomorrow our architect will meet with our school of people from both austin and jolly as well as our custodial staff to gain feedback about the potential building that's coming their direction we continue to have our weekly district meetings for the progress reports of the district's building
007we also have a aggressive time frame that would include getting our drawings done in november december with final board approval coming in january and then hopefully to let out bids in february march uh for the building project to hopefully begin in the summer of 2022. so there's a lot of exciting things happening with the building committee and those folks that are part of that and once again we'd encourage anybody in the public that might have questions or concerns just reach out to the building principles or myself at central administration and we can give you some feedback and try to answer your questions if you have anything to offer on the new uh elementary school so uh exciting times and we're really glad to kind of get this ball rolling for the good of the students
008in our community can you comment on the extent to where so we we still have kind of the initial draft layout that was just a potential draft is are those being changed or when will there be changes reflected based upon community input because i've heard that like well you know there's specific concerns about this but it's still in the draft it's like but if the draft is still a draft you know when will some of those things be reflected um in your packets the board packet you saw the most recent rendering of that drawing and it's a something that we can place on our website for more public input as well but we are we are addressing those things that come up to us so again if somebody is seeing a draft that they're having
009questions about they should contact one of us about that but at this point the architect has put in all of the classrooms all of the specials all of our team teaching specif facilities our special education and resources rooms um gymnasiums admin school nurses so most of the flexible space is is taking solid shape by now so we will make sure that this is continues to be updated on our website but really at each of these weekly meetings this continues to get fine-tuned i know that there's been multiple concerns raised about the special ed room not being in a place where it has eye level windows is that something that's still in the works of being addressed to try to find a space where people are at all day that don't have the eye level windows
010that is still being discussed but to be honest there's going to be give and take with this design if any design there's going to be somebody that's in the interior walls of this building and as we've explained throughout the process it's our architect architect has created a a cantilever window system that has lights that are windows and natural light that comes in above the ceiling level so it would either have to take the place of a first grade second grade third grade classroom for example or we have to use the space in the middle with team teaching special services resource room art room and flexible space so something in those building design will have to give with only getting cantilever lighting versus side at height window light update yes really no new news to report
011there the same data that i sent out last week to our patrons into our our school board we had two active cases in the district last week and at two active cases were in the high school so of our 1450 occupants in our buildings we had two moving cases new business item a uh our fall enrollment some good news yeah absolutely uh we had speculated this along the beginning of the school term but officially the last friday in september is the actual count date that schools receive their official count of students that are coming and going in their district uh our district count numbers were 1344. so we are up 85 students from last year uh at may so uh pretty pretty excited about the fact that we've grown by that and there are some
012challenges when you have 85 new students in the building but they're certainly some great opportunities with having that many new students in the district as well and we don't need any action on item a nope it's just an fyi okay that brings us to item b the second reading of policy gender equity and access we do have i will now call for public comment i have all of the names for people who have signed up and when i'm finished with that i will certainly open the floor we absolutely wish to hear from as many and all of you but in order to do that i will ask that you please try to keep your comments to three minutes at about five minutes we're going to try to we will put a hard stop on that
013in the interest of making sure everyone has an opportunity to speak before i call the first name i do want to make one additional comment and that is i've had the the opportunity to do a couple of interviews and i'm disappointed that one comment in particular has never made print and that is this that i am and i have said this to media outlets i am incredibly proud of the passion and the concern that the community has shown and the civility with which they have discussed a topic that in other parts of the country has resulted in name calling and physical violence i think we can continue to be an example for the rest of the country of how you address and talk about issues such as this so with that first person who signed
014up tonight ryan church um when we get to that well ryan's approaching if we get off of this please do state your name it's always helpful to restate your name when you uh approach the podium the microphone that's green is the one that's on ryan podium is yours ryan church well i hate to be the first one to contradict you doug because up until about three hours ago i was the sponsor of a petition in vermilion to oppose this bill or sorry this policy since i put my name to the opposition of this policy i have been called a transphobe i've been called a homophobe i've been told my ideas are filled with hate and violence i just want to make that very clear that i am not a transphobe i'm not a homophobe i
015do not have hate or violence towards anyone in this community my idea used to be to live and let others live this policy started off as just an equal bathroom rights issue i was 50 50 on the matter i had no real strong opinions one way or another somebody wants to use a bathroom they should be allowed to what i have a severe problem with is this policy has morphed from just a bathroom equality issue into something much larger we're now allowing students to share beds with each other on school trips we're allowing children to shower together in non-gender specific bathroom shower or locker room showers they're changing in the same locker rooms and that's what i have a problem with not because trans binary cis etc i have a problem because i feel that
016that disrupts children's innocence while i don't believe many will take advantage of this policy i think we've seen across the nation that there are some that are evil they do have evil in their hearts they are mean-spirited and they will attempt to use this policy to exploit our young ones i'm a father of two in this school district my children are very young so they will be in this school district for a very long time i do not want their innocence destroyed because we can't stop people from threatening with lawsuits because they don't get their way thank you [Music] lindsay jorgensen good evening my name is lindsey jorgensen i am here representing myself and my family and not my employer the only reason we are having this conversation is because we collect birth certificates upon
017enrollment you do not know what is on my birth certificate and i don't know what is on yours you assume my gen uh you assume my gender because of the way i present and the way i look we need to afford these students the same courtesy for this reason i continue to be in full support of this policy thank you [Applause] mike phelan my name is mike phelan um board members thank you for your time and effort in addressing this policy and this issue this past couple months i am the parent of two young children in the district as well and i strongly urge you to vote in favor of this policy at the beginning of the school year the board was asked to live up to the non-discrimination language already part of your policies
018gender identity is a protected characteristic in that list the board at the first meeting quickly agreed that the current practice was not living up to that standard at one of our first meetings on the issue jim mccullough urged you to act quickly to approve a change noting that the district was open to a lawsuit a lawsuit would very likely lose across the country district and appellate courts have decided in favor of transgender students seeking to use restroom and locker room facilities that align with the gender identity they insistently consistently and persistently affirm school districts on the losing side of those cases have had to pay millions in penalties and court costs the department of justice's office of civil civil rights specifically lists denying transgender students access to appropriate bathrooms as the type of thing that
019they would spark an investigation for them mr mccullough told you that a policy like the one that you're voting on tonight was the prudent thing to do it is also the morally right thing to do in an option that lets all students in vermillion public schools know you support them you've heard from experts in this field that gender affirming school policies save trans kids lives you've heard letters read on behalf of multiple trans students and their families about how current policies are hurting them you've heard from students who've had who have transgender friends tell you that they support this policy because they know it will help their peers mental health those of us supporting this policy have shown you the research on why this policy will protect our district's children will keep all children in
020our district safe on the other side you've also heard from parents worried about keeping their children safe and that's admirable all of us here want safe kids in our district but there is no evidence to suggest this policy will add any danger for any student transgender kids are not monsters looking to assault people in the bathroom to believe those arguing against this policy means believing that our schools are rampant with kids who are itching to assault somebody in a bathroom but also that they're being stopped by a little plastic sign on the door and those two things don't make sense to me together i believe the students in our schools are good they're not assaulting each other other places they're not going to jump into the bathroom to start assaulting each other states and cities
021and school districts all over the country have had gender affirming bathroom and locker room policies in place for quite a while now the actual evidence says that these policies decrease violence the entire state of iowa has had a policy like the one you're considering in place for more than a decade without issue those of you who work at large companies know that in the boss box versus clayton county supreme court decision last summer companies have been forbidden to discriminate against transgender employees and we have not seen a large outbreak of violence perpetrated by transgender individuals next saturday november 20th marks the transgender day of remembrance that honors transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence the list of names on that list regularly reaches numbers that would break your heart 37 people
022in our country were killed last year specifically because they were transgender and that's not including a large number of suicides from transgender students and adults who didn't have the support of their communities i stand before you tonight as i stood before you every meeting this year on this topic because i want next year's list of names to be shorter i don't want a single vermilion kid's name on that list i urge you to vote in favor of this policy letting transgender students in our districts know that they are loved they are supported and they are valued in vermilion thank you [Applause] leslie garrish good evening my name is leslie garrish and i'm a community member i have two little kids who are not yet of age to come to the school district but we can't
023wait to be tannertr soon um so i'm here tonight to support uh you in voting yes on the policy that's presented to you after last week's meeting i was a little discouraged and some of it is because of the rhetoric and all of that that's being broadcast but really i was thinking they don't really know how much support is out there and that's on us right we have to tell you we have to be here we have to show up so um it's easy for me this is an easy decision for me right um i think this policy is reasonable it's straightforward it's lawful but it's so many things that make vermilion what it is it's welcoming it's empathetic it's understanding this is vermilion we just don't tolerate each other's differences we welcome them and
024we celebrate them so i made a petition i was it was 7 a.m on wednesday i was at the sioux falls airport i made it and by the time i landed in chicago i had 300 signatures and since you've heard a lot of anecdotal research and evidence here's some data for you as of today we had a thousand and we had over a thousand people sign before i walked into this room and now i don't want to tell you all these people live here because that is actually not the truth so what i did this weekend with some help from my friends and colleagues is um i made you a breakdown of what i know about the people who signed this petition so i did this i updated it at 2 30 so this these
025numbers have changed as of 2 30 we had 975 total signatures that number's now over a thousand at that point we had 191 community members almost 90 percent of them were parents of kids in the school district and that number is over 200 at this point at that point that i can identify we had 130 usd students sign and i don't know all the usd students but there's a lot of other people on that and their names are all here for you this is a really exciting number that i want to tell you we had 24 as of earlier today vermillion public school students signed this petition they are current students they are your number one constituents we had over 30 vermillion public school graduates sign this so people who live elsewhere perhaps but graduated
026and there's some really interesting comments in the comments section that are also provided for you a lot of the other people that signed are alumni of usd their former commun community members there are potential people that wanted to move to vermilion there are people that perhaps wanted to go to usd for school there are all sorts of people that sign this and yes there are people who are just really passionate about this issue that live all over the world that signed as well and i mean that's exciting but you want to see the people that are going to be impacted by this and i understand this i do have five copies here and i'm happy to bring them up to you so i want you to look at that i want you to have some
027data and some understand who's actually in support of this issue i ask you to be brave i ask if you brave like these kids i know this isn't easy you've sat through a lot of really long meetings but i ask you to vote yes and the last thing i think you need to hear because it affects every single other comment is that trans boys are boys and trans girls or girls thank you very much [Applause] sandy mcewen good evening members of the board i am very happy to be standing in front of you tonight i am a member of the vermillion community i do not have a child in the district and frankly i wasn't going to speak because of that but as i have followed this policy and this policy conversation and i have
028followed it very closely i was i was struck by a couple of things that i just thought were important to bring um to the board's attention as you were thinking about this proponents of the gender equity policy have provided you with a raft of evidence that this policy is needed but opponents have also given given you evidence that this policy is needed over the last several months you have heard parents express their fear of transgender people they have told you that their children are afraid of transgender people being in the same bathroom with them they have told you that they believe that transgender children being in the same uh that transgender gender sorry children and their parents are making choices that are contrary to god's will so much that they are at risk of eternal
029damnation why is this important we are not born afraid of transgender people this is a learned response so what we know is that these children have been taught to be fearful of transgender people fear breeds contempt contempt breeds demonization demonization and dehumanization read violence parents of transgender transgender children cannot stand in front of you and tell you how they agonize over how to keep their children safe and healthy because to do so would be to expose their children to make them poster children for this issue and to risk their health and safety the decision you have before you is only difficult if you ignore the actual dangers and buy into the myths and misconceptions about what it means to be a transgender child and also if you buy into myths and misconceptions of what public
030bathrooms are like in my 50 years nearly on this planet my god i can't believe i'm nettle i have never seen another person's genitals in a public bathroom that creation there there there are a couple of issues that i think are really important because there are misconceptions that have been brought in front of this board over the course of several meetings that just need to be set straight the first one is that creation and implementation of this policy is somehow precipitous this issue was first brought to this board's attention in may of 2017 when community members and experts begged this board to put together a policy for transgender children and the board chose to do nothing this was also reported in may 2017 in the vermillion plane talk imagine the hypothetical transgender child that started
031school in the school year of 2017. she started kindergarten and went through it without a policy she went through first grade without a policy she went through second grade without a policy she went through third grade without a policy and will now complete at least half of her fourth grade year without a policy in place there are kids who were in eighth grade at the time you were first asked to address this issue who will graduate from school may be having two months of a policy in place and that policy is just a respect for their identity a respect for their identity in school if we could just pause for a second and think about that aside from family what more important place is there what more important environment is there for you to have
032your identity affirmed and respected than in school every child deserves that you are not being precipitous in passing this policy indeed with all due respect this bot this body has been derelict for nearly five years in addressing it the second misconception is that this policy has somehow been sprung upon the public without due consideration and opportunities to be heard in addition to the fact this has been an issue that this board has been aware of for five years this board has been holding public hearings and discussing this policy for months it was discussed at the following meetings august 24 2021 item 3 722 and august 27 plane talk piece was published on it on august 30th it was item 5 8 22 and a september third piece was published in the plain talk on september
03322nd it was item 110 22. on october 12th it was item 8 12 22 on october 15th another piece was in the plane talk about it about it and on november november 2nd 2021 more community members provided additional public comment on this issue before you passed your first reading these meetings were public the meeting agendas and minutes were published and easily accessible to the public and at the november 2nd meeting this board deleted portions of the policy for reconsideration after the new year which means you're going to start this all over again in january and now here we are again discussing this issue with the public there is nothing new surprising or out of order in the method by which this policy was proposed and then the last thing and i promise i will make
034this very quick um that there is some question aside from what is the law and what is your duty with regard to this policy is the final misconception your primary function is to craft and enforce policy for the school district you have been unequivocally alerted by legal counsel that the current district's practices are in derogation of the law schools are places where we teach students about their responsibilities as citizens about the rule of law and about the importance of doing the right thing a school district that is not complying with the law is not teaching those lessons perhaps worse it is actively instilling distrust and disdain for local government in the hearts of kids who are not even old enough to vote you need a policy administrators and teachers need guidance this is not a
035hard decision children are in danger the district is violating the law you have a duty and i appreciate very much your willingness to do it thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] donna schaefer i'm donna schaefer i taught in the vermillion school district for 23 years i'm experienced with elementary children i'm afraid that we are so concerned about one group of children that we are going to neglect the other group it's exchanging priorities and it's not keeping everybody not thinking about everybody in this situation i i can i can tell you for instance um i was a tomboy i could beat the boys in running i bloodied a boy's nose but not once did i consider myself a boy and i'm not saying that what i am saying is if i would have gone to the bathroom
036with the boys bathroom they would have beat me up if i if they would have come to my bathroom i would have been upset whenever i would approach the bathroom in the boys bathroom at school they were just so old just could not stand the fact that i was going to be in the bathroom or any girl would be in the boys bathroom and vice versa and i'm saying yes we do need to make a places for the those children who are not certain exactly what their gender is or i think their gender is different than what is noticeable and i think we we have done that we have especially in the high school in the middle school and we maybe do something more in the in the elementary grades but we do not i
037just don't think it is fair to the majority to make it possible for the minority to do make them more comfortable because then these are the other ones will be uncomfortable i think you really need to think about that um there are things that bother children that don't bother adults and we need to think about children as being children and not being an adult and i have a grandson who is gay and i love him dearly but he also appreciates me and gives me the ability to think what i think and he loves me anyway and i love him anyway it has nothing to do with that but i really truly believe that there are going to be a lot of kids in the elementary department that will sit there and wet their pants rather
038than go into a bathroom where they think there's going to be a boy in it or there's going to be a girl in it and i think we need to give consideration to that that's all [Applause] i'm really grateful to come here mark daniels is my name i have a student in the school system i've had five others who've gone through the school system and i'm really grateful to be here i'm grateful for people who talk in considerate ways with each other you know who share different viewpoints and opinions and you know i've really been impressed with the school board and your efforts to address the different voices that have been here heard in the and the superintendent as well i mean i think it's really amazing i think we're really looking at some issues
039addressing security and privacy for our students that are really issues not even related to one's gender identity i mean i think students have been having issues for years and years to go into showers and not have some students not have privacy and so i think we're really making wonderful progress of course i'm here i want to support the policy i think it's remarkable what you've done you know we started my first meeting was on the anniversary of the march on washington and i wanted to share i think this is a civil rights issue i mean this is the this i mean as nice as it was and thank you for the wonderful uh um support numbers we had but i don't think this is a vote i mean i don't think this is a we
040put it up for public policy vote this is this these are moral civil rights issues about how we treat one another and we don't vote on which groups we treat one way or which groups we treat another way we treat people with dignity with respect we value each person and and so i'd like to just suggest that the board really take that into consideration we've been spending a lot of time in our country over the our history trying to correct some of the mistakes we've made over the years and trying to provide opportunities for all of our citizens and i just want to encourage us to do that same thing and i want to once again say thank you thanks [Applause] [Music] tony armbrust thank you ladies and gentlemen for the school board for what
041you do for us we appreciate what you do for our children i'm very concerned as a father about this policy and the safety of my kids and not trying to malign anybody but there's a lot of fear there's a lot of things going on in our nation that have pointed to this is opening the door for abuse bad policy opens the door for your abuse we've talked about well our staff are going to police better our staff are going to do more our staff are busy giving our kids the best education possible they can't be everywhere they can't be everywhere and sometimes we we confuse the fundamental differences between a young man and a woman young men have sexual drives no matter how they dress or how they you know they have sexual drives and
042there's going to come a point maybe it's not the first year maybe it's not the second year where that's going to take over and something's going to happen somebody and this you guys are going to be accountable for that that's that's on you i love these kids i love all all people from the sincerest of my heart but we have an identity crisis and we've lied to you and told you that your gender can shift you can change gender that you weren't given you weren't created with a beautiful gender that god gave you and he loves you just the way you are you can't change it and we've created an identity crisis where we've told kids you can change you can be whatever we want and we've created an epidemic in our nation an epidemic
043of suicide of depression of death because people don't know who they are and this school board by our policy by what we do what we say we're speaking we're saying that's okay and what's it's gonna do to all the kids who maybe are firm and who they are it's gonna confuse them more and say well maybe you're not who you thought you are maybe god didn't make you this way maybe you were made in this image and oh and and so we have this epidemic we have this crisis and a lot of people are dying many people are taking their lives but we have the answers it's bad policy it's bad policy that opens these doors and this policy is based on fear it's based on fear of we're going to sue you if you
044don't do that that's not a healthy policy that's not a good way to go about it and we don't want that we don't want anybody to lose their life but we want truth we want truth and i'm i'm here i felt very compelled to speak truth that your gender does not change god made you in a certain way and he loves you very much but we're not going to find who we are and who we're created to be until we're walking and what we're created for and so if i'm pretending to be something i'm not i'm never going to find happiness and we're speaking this message to all of our kids well maybe you're not what you were creating maybe you're not what you're and they're going to be confused and they're going to be
045frustrated and they're going to go down paths of darkness that i have counseled and worked with many people to try to come out of and get free from well there is an answer there is an answer to the freedom that we seek we know there's a freedom but it's not available in this policy that we're pushing this policy is going to can further further confuse a generation and speak lies to people and children and so i encourage you to reject this policy [Applause] liz develder keeping this very short um i'm fully in support of the gender equity and access policy this policy affirms that the vermillion school district supports all of our students it is important that we support all diversity in our schools race color religion disability and gender identity thank you to the
046board for your time on this important issue i'm sure it has not been all joy thank you to mr alby in the principals because you've been working quickly to make changes and plans um for things in the future and and thank you for putting in all of that work everyone wants and deserves privacy in restrooms and locker rooms it is not just transgenders uh or transgender individuals please vote for the gender equity and access policy [Applause] katherine birkland good evening my name is catherine birkland thank you for the time tonight i wanted to thank you for serving on the school board my comments are directed at you i will not spend your time tonight trying to convince all of them that they should think like me i believe that you value all children in the
047district i truly believe that i truly believe that you do not agree with those who would insinuate that transgender students shouldn't exist i don't believe you think that i think you think that trans kids are tangers the same way all kids are teenagers i truly believe that you think that they're us i believe that you understand the fiduciary and legal obligations that are facing you i believe that you understand civil rights law and you've had legal counsel and you understand that your job is to provide an experience for all students that does not require revealing private information by wanting to use the restroom i believed you when you said you wanted more time to learn more we've been talking about this for a while and you asked for more time i believe that you used
048your time to do that i believe that you've looked at the cases that the other side has used that the opposition has given you as a cause for why you should oppose this i believe you have evaluated whether those cases have merit to be included in your discussion or not i hope that you have used your ability to read their statements and notice the number of times that they use the word those kids rather than our kids because trans kids are not those kids they're not those kids who happen to not know what they're doing they're not those kids who just want to be in class and use the same bathroom there are kids they're teenagers lastly excuse me um this one's a little hard for me but i've done this sort of thing where
049you have to sit and make a hard choice and i expect that you have your decision already made up i would expect that you did i don't expect you to show up to a meeting like this and be able to change your mind that's not how you should make decisions on the spur of the moment i hope that you have done your research i hope that you have talked to lots of people most of us here tonight came to say our peace we came to have our three minutes we came to be on record as supporter when our children ask us if we stood up when their classmates were being targeted and excluded thank you for your time [Applause] sarah taggart beyond sarah taggart beyond the fact that this policy denies biology and science forces
050people to use language and action showing conformity to an ideology with which they may not agree and promotes the belief of gender identity as the belief of the entire school the more egregious results of this policy is that it places at risk all students trans students as well as the general population students have sex based rights to sex exclusive bathrooms locker rooms hotel rooms and beds female students rights are not subordinate to a male student's desire to be seen as female nor are male students rights supporting it to a female's desire to be seen as male the compromised position this policy would place students in should outrage all parents for the parent that teaches their kid of the importance of modesty and sexual morality putting a student in a bathroom or locker room with one
051of the opposite sex completely undermines their teaching to allow students to be exposed to the anatomy of the opposite sex violates their rights their safety and their dignity and while showers in the locker rooms may at some point be remodeled to become private nothing prohibits students in the common area of locker rooms from walking around undressed the overnight accommodations guidelines being pushed forth by this board are shocking for members of this board to not only approve but to encourage students of the opposite sex to sleep in the same room and share the same bed is not just evil but criminal you are absolutely setting these kids up for failure and putting them in a position where very few students would feel comfortable students put in this position may lack the courage to express their discomfort
052due to pressure from teammates to simply go along to put a biological female in a bed with a biological male at a school-sponsored event could not be more wrong do i need to describe all that could happen do i need to describe to you what could be alleged to have happened i'm sure proponents of this policy will agree that these students persistently consistently and insistently identify as the gender of of others in the room that does not make them the same sex as others in the room nor does this give them the same biology and what about the gender fluid who may not reveal this tendency what about the transgender homosexual the thought of putting a biological male with a biological female in the same bed thinking this is okay is completely complete shows complete
053apathy for girls and utter disregard for their safety and while society while as a society we see more attention paid to the sexual safety of girls i am equally concerned about the compromising position this would put our boys in to allow encourage and promote having three boys in a room with a biological female and one of them sharing a bed with that female shows complete neglect for the well-being of both sexes it would take just one false allegation of sexual assault assault to ruin that boy's life it would take just one evil action by a predatory male to deeply harm that female and i might add in an effort to maintain privacy of the transgender student these mixed sexed hotel room arrangements can all be done unbeknownst to the parent and student and this could
054all happen because an ill-conceived policy shoved forward by agenda-driven members of this board tasked with the responsibility of overseeing the safety and education of our children you choose to push upon us an ideology and ideology with which the vast majority disagree and place our children in a situation that could damage their lives blame for any altercation that would occur from this policy is to be put directly on members of this this board who vote for this this is as shameful as it gets and let me also point out that this undermines parental rights by imposing no obligation on the part of the school to inform parents of a student's change in behavior regarding sexual identity is negligent keeping secrets from parents is a tactic of that is a tactic of cults and abusers and should
055never be the practice of a school district this policy violates religious lights rights is an offense is an offense to the large majority of families in this district and forces them to conform everything in this policy is about accommodating and affirming the transgender student at the expense of the general population this policy is one-sided and does nothing for to protect the rights and safety of all students thank you to board members rejecting this harmful policy i urge those of you who voted for this policy to vote the other way to tonight please consider focusing on improving current practices upgrading facilities and put and and put no policy in place thank you [Applause] todd nelson excuse me todd nelson um i am here tonight in opposition to this policy uh legal counsel has previously said uh
056this board needed to slow down this process yet those comments were immediately met by board members saying it needs to needed to be hurried up during school board debate prior to this election that created this current school board no questions were asked about creating policies like this no statements were made by candidates admitting this is the agenda that would be immediately pushed no other school in south dakota is doing this yet some on this board say it is so urgent we have to schedule special meetings to hurry it along because there is no other option but to act now same bathroom policy was put in place by another school board in virginia as a result a biological boy took advantage of it and raped two girls tragically at different schools this uh these assaults were
057a direct result of the opportunity this policy creates that so many of us fear as parents uh the lives of those two young girls in virginia and the lives of their families are forever changed in a horrible way when a child experiences this trauma they suffer a lifetime of issues these include higher levels of depression guilt body issues nightmares flashbacks difficulty in building trust fear intimacy ptsd sleep disorders anger feelings of powerlessness shame self blame eating disorders anxiety denial sexual problems and long-term relationship goals there are these are the direct life long effects you are potentially opening up for my girls and every other child in the vermillion public school district there would be nothing stopping incidents like this from happening here as a father of girls i can only beg you to end this
058tonight the comment has been made by this board is scared of being sued by transgender students i respect everyone i do not fear trans people that's respectful i fear the opportunity that this policy creates for bad people to take advantage of it that is what i fear as a father of two girls by far and that's really what it comes down to this process has been sloppy and hurried some on this board have ignored legal counsel advice and completely disregarded public concerns i pray there are three of you that will stand against this and vote no thank you for your time [Applause] if i could request uh the i want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to speak and the 15 to 30 seconds of applause between every speaker doesn't help accommodate that so
059next doug can i make a comment you may comment we've heard several people comment both in public comment time and in emails that we've received mentioned of the case in virginia i think that we know more about the situation that happened in loudoun county it's my understanding that the incident happened two months prior to a school board adopting a similar policy it's my understanding that the parties had had consensual sex in the bathroom twice prior to the incident and that this there was a student that was raped and the male student has been found guilty it's my understanding that that situation has nothing to do with transgender or restroom policy so i just want to make that clear as we continue with the public comment pick the perfect person to end the applause for thank
060you good evening and thank you for taking the time to hear me uh my name is phillip twilliger my wife lisa and i have lived here for the past 16 years and have two children in the school right in the school district right now i should start by strongly suggesting that this board take the advice of its attorney he can surely advise you appropriately i suspect his advice will include that discrimination based on gender identity is sex discrimination prohibited by federal law that should be enough but i certainly understand the personal nature of the issue so please allow me to speak briefly personally too we like most parents do our best to teach our children to respect themselves and others we research parenting techniques we reward good behavior we give consequences for bad behavior but
061what is the most effective parenting technique it's teaching by example i admit this is often the most difficult techniques technique for us parents we want our kids to eat healthy but we don't always eat healthy ourselves we want our kids to be friendly with everyone but then we adults demonstrate hatred towards people based on political affiliation religious beliefs or some divisive topic may we please for once demonstrate respect and love for ourselves and others by setting the example for our children i cannot in good conscience tell my children that they should love and respect everyone and then advocate ostracization of people based on gender identity i have a friend who expressed concern with the difficulty of explaining gender identity to her children i presume others share this concern please consider however that children are perfectly
062used to being taught new things in the grand scheme this is a very easy one the kids can and do understand this topic it seems to me that children are predisposed to being caring and accepting of others it is we the adults who teach them by example how to exclude insult and hate let's lead by example on this one please adopt this policy thank you for your time thank you it's better we're getting there glenn pulse hello glen pulse i just want to say there's been so many good points made today i'm not going to rehash a whole bunch of them but one thing i do respect about the vermillion community is their diversity i love it that's why that's why i live here and continue to live here i love the different ethnicities the
063different groups of people i love all the conversations that we can have without coming at each other's throats i love that and i think that even with this situation tonight i think that discussion should continue i raised three girls i have a granddaughter that is in the vermillion school district right now the policy does concern me as as it's written i think the when we raise our children and if everything's applied like it normally isn't vermillion i've got friends off of every gender of every every type you can think of in this room and i have customers too i'd love none of them any more or less than the other and i think when we foster that environment in our school and our community a lot of these policies are not needed that's that's my
064personal feeling do i think students need protections yes but i think that the focus should be on providing privacy in our schools if it's needed and i do believe it is needed in the showers and the bathrooms and then overnight stays and i think any bullying that would happen because of a transgender issue or or not should be addressed immediately and vigorously because everybody deserves a chance i love all these kids equally it doesn't matter to me whether they're gay straight transgender i don't care i love them equally across the board and i think most everybody in this room does also and i think when we foster that environment we don't need a policy like this so i would just ask that the focus be on updating the facilities to accommodate rather than exclude i
065have nieces and nephews that as strange as it may sound sometimes they they feel guilty for being a boy or a girl with the current environment the current discussions you know they ask questions about other possibilities we should not have to be ashamed to be a boy or a girl our identity shouldn't be a shame it should be celebrated and i think by providing the opportunities in the school for privacy and to prevent bullying and to give everybody access to what their gender is should be and when i when i say gender what it is when you you're born a male you're born a female until you reach a certain age that should be where you participate in sports in locker rooms in bathrooms so i encourage the board to strive for the privacy in
066the school in a new school that's being built in retrofitting some of the other schools to provide that privacy i'd urge you to vote no on the policy thank you thank you [Applause] caitlin collier first let me say thank you to all of you for sitting through this i i know you ran for this office and this is what you agreed to take on um but there are always these issues that i'm sure that there are a number of you who are thinking man i could be home watching on fox right now so thank you for being patient with all of us my name is caitlin collier i have lived in vermillion for most of the last 40 i think the last time i counted 44 years uh i've had two of my my two
067biological daughters go through this school system and since one of them just turned 40 you know that goes back pretty far a foster child a couple of children who could not be accommodated in the foster care system who lived with me for a while i have a granddaughter over at the middle school i've been an attorney for over 30 years i'm actually as most of you don't know a formerly ordained minister i had this crazy idea that maybe the church would be a nicer place than a courtroom who knew um but i also have something else i want to bring up i was not born in south dakota i was born in the south and until i was 12 you know until i was 19 years old that's where i lived most of my life
068in the south so when i hear words like accommodate when i hear phrases like we just want to be fair and they're not thinking of others i think of separate but equal because i was living in the south when that was a policy i started into sixth grade when segregation was ended in the southern community in which i lived and what is horrifying to me is that i can remember very clearly many of these same phrases being used and you doubt at all that it's a civil rights issue i don't see how you can last friday i went to a memorial for jim mccullough who i have known since about 1978 you had the capable intelligent advice from probably one of the best attorneys who ever practiced in this state a man with a remarkable
069ability to read and to understand law and he would never have suggested that anything that he recommended to you anything that suggested that you could be putting yourself in a place of liability would be anything other than the absolute truth we seem to have a little problem in this county with people wanting to get sued now i realize we don't have enough lawyers in vermilion but if you're thinking that maybe some of this kind of behavior of encouraging lawsuits would bring some more on you may be right i'm just thinking maybe we could just go to the law school and ask a few of them to come and practice here but that's up to you thank you dennis johnson well you can tell by the color of my hair that my children went through the
070vermillion school system a number of years ago but i haven't lost interest in school board policy although i haven't taken a part in public discussions of that there have been a lot of good things said tonight i think on both sides there's one aspect though that has not been discussed at all and so i'll limit my remarks to that one thing and that one thing has to do with the policy with respect to sports activities one of my children was a daughter and it was a great thing entitled for her when the title ix came in and they had you were required that girls be given the opportunity to play sports in the same way that boys were but they were separate you didn't put girls to run against boys you didn't put girls on
071the football team you didn't have girls competing with boys i have a sentence or so of information here that i think is quite relevant the fastest female sprinter in the world is american runner alison felix a woman with more gold medal medals than usain bolt i presume you know those names he's saying bulk male probably more metal than any other male but she has more but that was competing against females her lifetime best for the 400 meter run is 49.26 seconds based on 2018 data nearly 300 high school boys in the u.s alone could beat it i suggest that a policy like this which is being proposed where we have sports activities where the person who can compete in sports according to their own identity as seen by themselves you're permitting and encouraging people to
072describe reality on their own reality is what they say it is there is no such thing as reality other than what the opinions of these people are it's an intellectually indefensible position and if this policy goes through coming back to the sports activities again then it'll take time but you're going to have a lot of daughters who would have otherwise achieved a scholarship who would have received trophies and uh improved her leadership skills that will no longer be able to do that and why why in the name of equity it's not equity you have to recognize that there's a difference between men and women boys and girls if you don't well you're just not paying attention [Applause] okay laura hello my name is laura wiemers i'm standing up here today to ask you not to
073vote for this policy when the idea for this policy was first presented it spiraled into investigation for the school district the board and the parents members of the community and parents of students within the district have been addressing the board since that time and many questions have arisen i ask you not to vote for this policy because questions that these community members and parents have asked have yet to be answered some of the questions include what will these bathrooms look like will there be changes to the bathrooms that parents with non-transgender children will need to discuss with their children if someone were to be violated who would be to blame where will be the accountability what is the actual ratio of kids that want this what would happen if someone is sexually assaulted by another
074student or even an adult have you asked teachers and administrators how they feel about this if we instituted a change of policy how would that look a supporter of the policy asked what if we expanded to three bathroom options to include female male and gender neutral and why is that not an option will the students be surveyed so their opinions on this matter can be heard will someone be in the bathrooms and locker rooms to ensure safety