Vermillion School Board

001buses as well as austin elementary and uh last meeting we talked a lot about our testing protocols and so amy had updated the sheet which you have before you today but just in spirit the two things that we'll talk about are the bionics antigen tests are the the diagnostic testing that we use within the district same as we used last year rapid tests for symptomatic students if a student exhibits symptoms in school we'll try to seek parental consent to do the rapid test and then those kids of course would be sent home pending the outcome as well as making sure that they go home to get the needed rest those tests are available every day at the middle school from 9 to 11 so anywhere within the district amy will be able to give those

002to symptomatic students asymptomatic students are coming back from quarantine on either day five six or seven then would schedule an appointment to come to the middle school between 9 and 11 any day of the week so that amy can basically verify that they have no longer got coveted or were never i guess positive with kova they were home on quarantine so that's the similar practice that we did last year but just a confirmation from last meeting that we now have a full supply of the antigen tests daily testing the quadell quick quick view test are the new tests that the state have offered us as more of a surveillance testing at home so families who might want to participate in this would call the school and register and say i would like a quick view

003test sent home because i want to test my son or my daughter at home the expectation there is the it's course completely voluntary the results are supposed to be reported to their medical provider you would request a test and you'd register with the school you would come and pick that up at the school that you needed it could be something that you could sign up annually for and say every two weeks i want one of these tests every month i want to have one of these tests each test that goes home has two quick view tests in it so parents would have this opportunity to use that test as they see fit so it's just another thing that the state is providing schools and schools are providing to students apparent surveillance your health outside the

004school district obviously it all is important that if you're seeing any symptom of any kind that you don't report to school you just talk to your building principles so very robust testing is available now fully staffed with our uh nurses as well as finally a full slate of both antigen and quadel quickview tests so that's the update okay so we will move on to our new business items the first is as i think everyone is aware and if you're not this will be news there was a small fire at the high school that was contained to the chemical storage room but the damage and particularly the smoke damage does create a problem and so while i had the opportunity to inspect the damage and there's already progress in getting that room cleaned out and get

005things ready but we do need to do the thorough cleaning of that south east corridor and the particularly the classrooms are around there and so mr alvey has we do have bids from now from two and i believe we can give them the go ahead once we award one of these bids sooner we can do that the sooner we can get everything up and running outside i think the chemistry room will be the exception so can you would you like to run through that briefly basically just as doug said last thursday at 6 34 a.m we had our alarms uh indicated a fire in the high school chemistry lab uh first responders and our own folks were on scene and minutes actually had folks in the building when when the alarms went off uh all

006in all uh the volunteers the first responders did a great job knocked the fire out rather quickly but it was contained to the storage closet where all of our chemicals and for our chemistry lab are located the upside to that was that the chemistry teacher had them stored extremely well and safely all the flammable materials were stored inside the fireproof cabinet the fire was presumed to start on top of that cabinet probably from an electrical failure in a device that's used in the classroom and once that failed it started the cabinetry on fire but everything worked as it should the fire cabinet was not penetrated in any capacity which would have been a totally different picture had those doors not been shut or that cabinet was penetrated so everything worked as intended there uh mr

007schloss as well had made sure that that chemical closet was shut with to the two fireproof doors that exit into the classroom which contained the entire all the fire to that room now that room sustain uh is total great damage in that room however the rest of the school the west wing classroom classrooms decided the office of space sustained smoke damage as you can imagine when they opened the doors to put the fire out it traveled through the school so as a result we had obviously fire marshals fire inspectors cleaning agents and professionals that come and deal with fires every day come and inspect our building do air quality purging the air doing all the things they do we had a bid from louie's carpet cleaning here in town for a mitigation of a hundred

008and forty four thousand three hundred forty dollars and eighty seven cents this is to completely clean the uh the west wing of that school which will be of course carpets the ceiling tiles removing all of those objects cleaning everything that's in those locations the next bid came from in tech cleaning services and their bid came in at sixty thousand two seventy nine fifty seven so uh those bids include the structure and contents as well as the carpets and anything located in those rooms from the library all the way south uh what is not included in these bids that we will have further work on will be the continued demolition and the restoration of all those rooms ceiling tiles carpet doors walls windows anything that was removed or damaged in the fire so all in all

009small fire but it created a great discourse within the school we have two excellent agents here that are prepared to come in and mitigate that we've been remote learning at the high school for the last week we'll continue through this week in hopes that we will be able to bring students back to the high school on monday so you have two bids there to consider and once awarded i'll be able to get them in tomorrow to start the cleaning process so just to clarify because these are rather disparate amounts yes the bid itself was for the same structure contents ducks yes yes and i apologize some of them maybe didn't hear some of that with my mic off but basically we've got two uh qualified certified fire specialists bidding the same work uh although the

010the way they get to the end result might be slightly different in their practices and their procedures the end result is they both bid the same space the same rooms and the same context of the the fire damage okay and question you and kevin would have vetted or gone through it that it is apples and apples comparison yes and the adjuster from our um from our liability uh has been working with both of these agents with me to do so okay i was i would recommend we use in-tech cleaning if it's apples apples just based on the dollar amount now both very good reputable firms we've used them business side ourselves so it's my recommendation any other thoughts or comments accurate brent is that a law office thank you and that will enable brent to

011fall under the practice of our as our approved school attorney for the time being motion to approve motion by rachel second second bye sorry carol was that thank you any further discussion seeing none all in favor of changing the wording on our appointment to the mccullough law office please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay abstentions motion passes then we'll take the next two items as a single motion we have two employees uh the first is marissa mockler as an aide the second actually sorry four total employees three new hires for beyond school adventures kylie devine haley paz and ariel rotnicki and then an appointment of an adult volunteer emma spinks to serve with the flag crew any questions or concerns okay and i will suggest a single motion to approve employment offers and adult

012volunteers motion to approve the employment and volunteers thank you motion by carol second second by shane all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye propose nay motion passes okay thank you [Music] so moving on at this point i think it as it has on a couple of occasions been uh prudent to have kind of a summary of some actions that have been taken and hear two reports and then at that point i will actually open it up to public comment um i will call you off in the order that you appear on this sheet this does not if you are not on here you certainly may still address the board we would just ask that you sign a sheet when you approach the podium after these folks have finished speaking so i will

013give a quick summary for those who haven't been following where we've been and what we're doing the school district in our planning meetings this year began uh added the item of looking at our inclusivity policies generally and along the way it came up at a september meeting and we had a good public turnout i thought that was excellent good comment regarding the fact that the current vermilion school district does have a non-discrimination policy that includes transgender our practice has been to interpret the accommodation for transgender students as using a single stall restroom and there certainly are drawbacks to that those single stall restrooms are not always located in the ideal location they're sometimes much further than other restrooms and the mere practice of having to go to a restroom that a number of students do

014not use can create potential concerns for bullying for the students who are using them but that is our current practice at present after the discussion at that meeting we asked the policy committee to begin reviewing policies it's certainly come to our you know attention that other states and schools have policies that have been effective we have asked damon and brent to review any other legal consult that we can get and they have done that and you have all received a summary from i believe it's ksb in nebraska and then there are a couple of other relevant points that i think are just useful to remind the public and that is that the south dakota high school activities association first adopted a transgender policy in 2013 revised it in 2015 and it has been in effect

015since that time that there was a bath a bill that would have prohibited or limited bathroom use passed by the south dakota legislature and then vetoed by then governor dugard in 2016 and then finally an executive order in 2021 pertaining to transgender sports participation so this issue has been one that the state has been wrestling with that the school district has obviously been cognizant of so that's what brings us to today and i think at this point it would be helpful to have the policy committee please give us kind of a quick summary because i do want to make sure the public has ample time to comment of what you have done the work you've done up to this point and then i'll ask damon and brent to give us a summary of the legal

016issues all right carolyn i have met along with mr the first one i believe the public has potentially seen this we will call the transgender use restroom practice mr elvi has done some work along with the south dakota high school athletic association and took basically those pieces that you mentioned doug and kind of scale them down i'll kind of do a summary of that number one is that there'd be a notice to the school is that the student and parents saw contact administration at the school notifying them the student has a consistent gender identity different than listed on the school's registration record or birth certificate and that the student's desires to use the restroom are consistent with his or her identity at the meet a meeting will be converted convened with the building principal and

017the superintendent to discuss the desired accommodations step two providing documentation would be like a written consent from the student and a written verification from a healthcare professional and then thirdly the student teacher would be involved in kind of the planning that would be needed so those are kind of just three simple things that we took from i think a lengthy list of the south dakota high school association's current state and then carol will kind of talk about another two additional options that were discussed on morsel policy changes two policies that were put forward the first simply amends our policy jfab our non-discrimination policy um it currently reads the vermilion school district does not discriminate on the basis of race color creed religion sex disability ancestry national origin sexual orientation gender identity or age in its

018education programs or activities and employment opportunities and provides equal access to the boy scouts and other designated youth groups so the proposed language to to tweak that would be the vermilion school district does not discriminate on the basis of race color creed religion sex disability ancestry national origin sexual orientation gender identity or age in its educational programs and activities employment opportunities or facility usage this includes but is not limited to access to locker and restroom facilities and then another policy put forward is specific to transgender students and reads the vermillion school district understands gender identity to be a core aspect of personal identity and sets forth related policy to both foster an educational environment that is safe and welcoming as well as comply with local state and federal law students will be allowed to use

019the restroom and locker room that corresponds to the gender identity they consistently assert at school no student will be required to use facilities that conflict with his or her gender identity consistently asserted at school a transgender student or any other student who has a need or desire for increased privacy may be given the option of using a separate or private restroom or changing area such as a single stall restroom if such is available no student shall on account of their transgender status be required to use such separate facilities the determination of consistently asserted gender may be determined in collaboration of any of the following parent or guardian counselor and or building administrator this policy does not require a student to provide any documentation about a gender dysphoria diagnosis but does require that the identity be

020consistently asserted okay thank you very much mr ellie would you like to add anything i'll just add i'll just kind of talk a little bit more about how those where those uh examples came from and kind of what we've done since our last meeting uh part of our our uh time that we've been working on this is you know it's been over a month now that we've been working on that uh part of that time has been spent doing some research part of that time was um jim our our school attorney working on that uh jim is ill right now so he hasn't been able to continue with that for us which has led us to having brent uh be brought in to work on uh fulfilling that role so we've had to do a

021little bit of catch up on some of the the aspects of where we were at and where we're at currently so our time frame is sort of has been sort of uh slighted a little bit due to some unforeseen circumstances there the samples that we saw are kind of a combination of samples from other states south dakota typically doesn't have uh schools don't have policies that specifically outline their procedures most of the schools that we have called and talked with have similar policies and practices that we have asserted here in vermilion that being said iowa does have a state law that requires uh transgender usage to be equal access restrooms and so in visiting with folks in the iowa school district they've got a very detailed four or five page policy that's added to their

022manuals what we found after talking with those folks was to continue on with brent and some others giving us legal case work and some of you in the audience have have visited us with us as well about the cases and of course the cases at this point are pretty clear in their sense of the office of civil rights and the biden administration interpret that any discrimination whether it's title vi or title ix are all related whether it's employment and or educational opportunities for students so in looking through all of those legal cases those cases were largely upheld for the rights of the transgender student so that was things that we passed on to our our committee and our board here as well for consideration we also of course can find it in the south dakota

023high school activities association about their practice as well as their policy of allowing transgender students a process to compete in sports or activities that asserts or aligns with their identity and in using that that's one of the examples that you see listed today before you or that you heard rachel talking about was using portions of the south dakota activity association's practices and policies those have not been challenged in the state and therefore are considered solid but like anything that's new depending on who you ask depending on if something can be challenged or not so that is another consideration that the policy committee was undertaking in legal consultation with brent and some others obviously the board has known now that this is something that's a priority to deal with and make sure that they address so

024that the fairness and inclusiveness of all of our students is this is a top priority uh they have to decide if it's going to be in the form of a practice or a policy uh there's pros and cons to both of those and as well as how detailed they want that to be some examples of the policies that school districts have are similar to what carol talked about at the very first one it's as simple as the vermilion school district will not discriminate based on any of those seven categories sex age gender identity and so on and we'll take um [Music] we'll discuss all those cases on a case by case basis or it can be as detailed as our friends in iowa that have four or five pages of descriptions and details that outline

025exactly their policy uh in their state and so once again that's something that this committee and the board would have to decide is it going to be a simple anti-discrimination statement or is it going to be an elaborate practice policy so that is is really the the undertaking that's gone on the last two weeks behind the scenes and brent i'll let you talk a little bit about anything that you've covered besides what we've already shared thank you damon as jim stated in the last meeting the current policy or excuse me the current practice is deficient something needs to be done but it doesn't need to be done today i think it's something where we need to have input from the community have a you know civil discussion and hear from both sides of the issue

026it's something that's important enough that you need to take your time and do it right i at this point um you know you've laid out your policies and i'll wait to hear uh from the board and from the public but there are issues with each of the proposed practice and both the policies that are laid out as well and i can address those afterwards or now whatever the board would prefer but it's something where the practice needs to change but exactly how that is done has yet to be determined okay so that gives the board a bit of an overview i think this is an appropriate time to ask for public comment on this so i hope you're right okay uh as you come up please come up i will again ask the general guidelines

027please do not refer to any student or personnel by name and if you would just for everyone else i will call you up but if you approach later please state your name if i have not stated it okay leslie garrish oh and one other thing is leslie approaches we will be trying to keep this to about five minutes um at the five minute mark i'm gonna ask rachel the time and give you a bit of a warning your time hasn't started um it's okay i'm not going find it but we will try to give you a warning and if it looks like you're wrapping up you know i would try to be curious to not interrupt you but i may say hey is this going to wrap up mike is yours thank you um hello

028my name is leslie garrish and i am a parent of two littles who are not yet in the vermillion public school district but we're excited to be part of the tannerger family in the next few years i'm here to advocate for the school corporation that i want my kids to be a part of and that one adopts the most inclusive bathroom policy i think it's the latter one that um carol listed that would be i think sample c that you sent out we have an awesome opportunity in front of us to make our schools even more welcoming inviting an inclusive place for all kids from the minute they walk in their first day of kindergarten to to the day they get their diploma teaching empathy to all of our kids allowing kids to use the

029bathroom of their gender identity these are not radical ideas in fact as you all discussed just a minute ago these policies have been implemented all over the country and not just in our coastal states kentucky iowa and there is no indication anywhere where these policies haven't that have been implemented um have have had any issues of safety happy in fact i would argue that inclusive empathetic environments create happy people happy people learn better happy people are better friends colleagues productive members of society they grow gardens they volunteer and they hang out with each other in their communities these policies have also been endorsed by the american school counselor association the national association of elementary school principals the national association of school psychologists and the national association of secondary school principals what an opportunity we have

030to be leaders in our state i encourage you to think about the possible legal legal implications which you already are you already said it i know you thought about this um as cases moved through the pipeline in our courts and last i feel like this should be set in this room and our community and our schools more the trans girls are girls and trans boys or boys thank you so much for listening to me and for taking care of our community i really trust you with this decision [Applause] all right hello my name is dr april carrillo i use the pronoun she her hers i wish to address the board concerning the lack of policy regarding trans youth using the restroom while they're attending school i do not have a student in the district however

031i am a researcher by trade and my area concerns issues of revolving around the trans community i am compelled to speak here today after seeing many folks who spoke at the last meeting who quite frankly sorry who expressed fears about such a policy cited some evidence and were generally agreeable to quite frankly a separate but equal flavored policy make no mistake singling out trans youth for a hygiene practice that all of us partake in because they experience gender differently is fundamentally misguided and damaging to those youth however while some argue that feelings should not guide the policy i am inclined to agree facts should take precedent so what are they in 2018 the american academy of pediatrics and american professional association of pediatricians published a guide as a guidance policy as a guideline for its

032members on how to treat trans youth with respect and to support them as their physician the policy's explicit purpose was to quote improve health care access and eliminate disparities for children who identified as trans and gender diverse while providing brief relevant background on the basis of current available research and expert opinion from clinical and research leaders part of their recommendations actually included supporting inclusive bathroom policies in schools in 2015 glsen the gay lesbian straight education network found that 34 found that 43 of children who identified as lgbtq reported feeling unsafe because of their gender expression only six percent of those kids reported that their policy that their schools had official policies to support them and only 11 reported that their school's anti-bullying policy covered gender expression similarly in 2015 the u.s transgender survey of nearly

03328 000 adults the only nationally representative survey to ever be conducted in the united states of with trans people found that 77 of those who were out or perceived as trans in k-12 face mistreatment because of being transgender those include 17 percent who left school because of the severity of the mistreatment and six percent were actually expelled a hostile school climate can negatively infect can inevitably impact a student's life trajectory from education and employment to long-term achievement and well-being in that same study those who were mistreated were more likely to experience homelessness attempt suicide and report other negative experiences research consistently indicates that negative school climates associated with someone's being transgender is correlated to missing days of school earning lower grades and not planning to go to college in terms of safety which i heard

034a lot there is no there is equivalently no connection between a trans policy being implemented and cisgender students suffering harm in a study from media matters of 17 school districts that cover 600 000 students which has protections for trans people there were no problems reported with harassment in locker rooms or in bathrooms after implementation consequently back to the glsen study i mentioned more than half of the students who identified as trans were prevented from using the bathroom their names or pronouns were not used with their asserted gender at school a lack of policies that protect trans youth who identify as trans or gender diverse was associated and repeat and reported victimization with more than half of those identification students who identify as lgbtq face verbal harassment because of their gender expression essentially a lack of

035policy is condoning bullying because a failure to acknowledge is a failure to protect i actually looked at the cases being cited for the danger that these trans youth posed to other students in the bathroom and most of them have to do with cisgender adults sexually abusing children and filming other people in the bathroom without consent these cases have been repeatedly used to prove that having a trans-inclusive bathroom policy was dangerous but nothing about their cisgender identity was written about their proclivity to criminal activity these are cases of cisgender men dressing as women to enter women's only spaces but none of them are transgender ever identified as a woman and nor and did not live their life as such after the incident or before thus this is an awfully broad brush to use when the same

036three cases which is in toronto seattle and indianapolis i believe to justify actively harming trans children in our schools when there is no evidence that harm will befall cisgender students i sincerely hope that the well-being of the students in this district is a priority but if it is not i hope that that if it is not and that does not persuade you perhaps the 1.3 million dollars the glockest or county school board in virginia has to pay for denying gavin grimm a trans student from using the restroom of his choice while attending a k-12 school will thank you nate brady i'm reading this letter on behalf of a student in vermilion hi everybody i am transgender student who attends school in vermillion i'm not allowed to use the bathroom that fits who i am i

037have to use this staff bathroom it is really really hard while it has changed year to year this year i have to walk down five hallways just to get to the bathroom when all the other kids walk five steps and they are there it is not fair it makes you feel different like you are not normal or weird one bathroom i had to use didn't have a lock on it and i had to worry about kids barging in on me lots of times i go to the bathroom the teacher's in there so i have to go back to my classroom wait another hour and then go back again it sucks sometimes i do not drink a lot of water so i don't have to go to the bathroom as often because it's hard for me

038to go if people see you use a staff bathroom they might have questions that you don't want to answer so i try to hide it one of my teachers developed a code for me to run various errands so i'd have a chance to go to staff bathroom about being seen it was nice of the teacher but it made me feel bad for lying to my friends and being treated different i knew the bathrooms at school were going to be hard but i didn't think they were going to be this hard school is the only place where i have these problems everywhere else the dome the pool stores i'm able to use the bathroom that matches who i am i think kids should be able to feel normal in themselves please change this you'll be helping

039us have a normal and happy time at school thanks for listening nancy foster my name is nancy foster i have attended one school board meeting in my entire life and that was about 27 years ago when the superintendent was advising the board to dismiss prayer at graduation for fear of a lawsuit with the help of the lawyer matt staver of liberty council out of florida i educated the board and the community for the next six weeks when the local paper printed the articles that in fact student-led prayer was perfectly acceptable in public schools typically my letters here to the plain talk don't get printed forcing a policy such as a one-size-fits-all does not help with the transgender issue everyone in the united states has equal rights and everyone demands results results however have to be

040earned where rights come from god organizations that promote victimhood are actually promoting a divide and conquer attitude a warfare tactic of marxism coming from saul lelinski's book rules for radicals they thrive on dividing and conquering instead of already seeing the obvious that we are all equal under the constitution the trans person trans person is not discriminated they are confused and very lonely they need to be educated education of our children involves learning to control your emotions instead of legislating other people's behavior when you threaten to sue to have your own way that depicts a child throwing a tantrum how many married people have said i don't feel married that doesn't mean you aren't married when you need a policy to feel better there will be abuses of that a policy down the road that is

041what matt staver of liberty council has said people often have issues in the workplace and want to have to be addressed they want their issues addressed and when they're told by upper management sorry that's our policy that person goes unheard this would not happen by a case-by-case situation also christie gnomes said we are not to be teaching critical race theory in our schools and when we teach transgender and lbgtq on our schools you are sexualizing our children human secularism has been taught in the school since we can be our own god and books in the school libraries have for decades transmitted that message the supreme court has ruled that human secularism is a religion and you could be sued for teaching religion in the schools i personally have seen the cognitive dissonance and the inability

042of these wounded people to have common sense caregivers loving their children mistakenly cannot see through the emotions many transgenders down the road wish that they since they were children would have had a little bit more intensive counseling before their decisions to maim their bodies that could not be reversed instead of the approving support of their parents many are raised by single parents focus on the family has said for decades the father loss leaves a big impact especially in boys i visited a mother of a middle school daughter here in this school district and the daughter said that a teacher and i say the teacher was harassing the daughter and she was asking the child middle school why she wasn't really on board with all the transgender stuff and she responded rather truthfully the same reason

043my mother will not let me walk in the streets after dark since men attack women i give that girl credit for being able to have such a quick comeback to a person in authority no less and of course there's nothing new under the sun truth has been attacked for centuries [Applause] time hi my name is ty morgan and um i'm really not addressing the bathroom portion i think most of the people who have a problem with this implementation if they thought about it well if they thought about it logically would think i don't want somebody who presents in every way as a woman no matter what their biology is to use the men's bathroom um that causes confusion for everybody the big issue for me is locker rooms we have segregated locker rooms for a

044reason we no one here is saying we should have completely universal locker rooms where everyone changes together because i think most people would realize that's a recipe for problems when you have people of different biological makeups using the same locker room that is where i think the problem comes in where most people who are opposed to this i think that is what they are really opposed to um i think that if you do implement this that in the bathrooms i've had this opinion in regular bathrooms forever the bathroom should be floor to ceiling dividers no gaps visible in the doors just for privacy for everybody it doesn't matter if you're male female trans or not privacy is important and i think that that is something that should be implemented for this but locker rooms you

045can't do that and that is where i think most of the opposition probably stems from even though it's always presented as bathroom policy the big issue is locker rooms to me thank you jennifer phelan so i'm standing before you and i am clearly a proud ally what i have to say is that when all of us stand up here we have the we have privilege we have privilege to stand up here i have privilege that you just called my name i am identified and i'm being recorded and streamed to whoever wants to see it we have to remember that many individuals in the lgbtq community do not have that and so i am not standing up here saying that i'm talking for a community but i do want the board to recognize that there are

046people in this community who don't feel comfortable they don't feel comfortable sending an email that's identifying they don't feel comfortable standing up here i do want to thank you very much for providing those samples that you put up last night um i appreciate you demonstrating your commitment to gender diversity in the district after i reviewed it i really would encourage that sample three of the policy be considered i can appreciate from a legal perspective that it may have to be tweaked but that is the policy that is all-encompassing because the reality is if you look at the the words you have there that's not a transgender bathroom policy that's an inclusive restroom policy is what that is that policy says any student in the district who wants to come and say i need an accommodation

047i'm not feeling comfortable for whatever reason that they're able to come to the school to say that and to know that it's a safe space to know that they're going to be listened to and that this one aspect of going to school that we all have to do that we all do you know multiple times a day it's not something they have to think about they get to go to school to learn and this one piece is taken care of because they were in a district that was ready to listen to them and ready to work with them we all of our children need a space that not only supports them but that's accepting of them there's a really big difference between those two and we need our students to know we accept them for

048who they are because our your job your job is to put the policies in place the teachers jobs are to teach them but they need to know that they're that their school is an accepting place for them acceptance is what makes school that safe and welcoming environment that is used those words are used safe and welcoming environment that's used in sample three that's what acceptance can do that's what acceptance will do and i very much support a lot of that um that sample three wording we want our students to know that we that the district accepts them and i hope that you as the school board will embrace that for all of our students thank you [Applause] todd nelson this was amazing for a tall guy todd nelson i am here as a father of

049two girls at jolly i'm here in opposition to these policy changes one thing after the last meeting i want to make clear i'm not against uh there's a difference between being concerned about the policy i'm not against transgender people i want everyone to feel comfortable my concern and i worked in retail for almost 10 years there's a reason why employees often come up to customers it's not just to help you find what you're looking for it's also to be honest with you help prevent theft i'm not saying this is that i'm just telling you there's a huge difference between being i'm not anti-transgender i am for my girls i have an eight-year-old and a 10 year old there is a i want to make that clear i want everyone to feel inclusive and i know

050that's impossible to make happen but i just want to make that clear after the last meeting i felt like that was that point was being missed people with conservative values like myself just want to live our lives with as little government interference as possible we don't create countless activist groups on college campuses and through city councils we just want to go to school go to work take care of our families and help our neighbors most people with traditional values don't want to run for public office because we naively believe that whoever we vote for should have our best interests at heart and our injury is of better use elsewhere but we have to start standing up and pushing back i don't trust some of you on this school board this policy change is just the

051beginning of a much bigger far-left agenda some have planned and will keep pushing to achieve as fast and as much of as possible before people realize what happened a couple of you already had your minds made up about this issue before listening to one second of public opinion one of you won't stop demanding a mandate mass and to keep trying to change the rules to do so when one of or when no one from the public is watching uh this is why i'm here um when i would much rather be at home help my kids practice for their spelling test tomorrow um i have a few i have realized a few things and talking with people about this very few people are aware of this um i believe some on this board are pushing this

052as fast and as hard as possible without um giving it the respect this issue deserves and the time this issue deserves your your legal counsel just said it to you um this is a serious topic probably one of the biggest ones you might have as a board and it deserves the time to get all people's opinions that want to give it um you can change the definition of words like male and female to weaponize them to fit your narrative but i won't accept it um i have kids too i talked to them last night i haven't talked to them about this topic at all i asked him how would you feel if a boy came into a bathroom when you were in there first word they both said uncomfortable they said i wouldn't like it

053i would try to hold my pee all day long until i get home i wouldn't want to use the school's bathrooms anymore it would be weird i asked them about the locker rooms they said i wouldn't want to change there i would just wear my uniform to school under my clothes all day i wouldn't use that bathroom and it would be weird if a boy was in the girls locker room i haven't talked to him about this they're eight and ten i don't hear any oohs and oz about that because inclusiveness is for everybody i asked again uh where does this end if it passes uh i question when the adults including teachers um faculty members and uh people from community are gonna be included in this because we're ignorant to think that this is

054the end of this policy if this passes this will expand to include to basically get to a point where there should be just no policy at all because what's the point um i hate to even bring this up because this is nothing to do with transgender the topic but we had a high school teacher recently arrested for sexual exploitation of a minor i'm not saying that's transgender has nothing to do with that but there are very bad people in this world and they will take advantage of policies if this is moved forward um to those on the school board actually listening with an open mind please vote this down at the very least give it the time and the notice of the public to gather as many opinions opinions on this topic for as long

055as that process may take this might be the biggest issue like i said earlier as you deal with the board and rushing through it with this little community awareness of it happening is irresponsible and deceptive once you start going down this road there is no end thank you for your time [Applause] mike phelan hi my name's mike phelan i addressed you guys uh three plus weeks ago um that has been a fair amount of time this past so far um as mr alby has said this is an issue that the board and the community in general has been thinking about for several years even if it's not you know these are the words and policies this is not a new idea um for our district um for the people of our country um it's also

056not a thing that's completely isolated to our school and i know i'm standing in front of the school board um but three weeks ago when i talked to you guys i asked you to think about this issue every single time that you go to the bathroom whether you wanted to have very personal details of your life revealed to an authority figure every time you go to the bathroom uh i don't know if you've done that between three weeks ago and today i don't know if you've done it at all i know that transgender kids in our school district have had that forced upon them every single time they've gone to the bathroom at school in the last three weeks and in the last many years um but they don't just go to the bathroom at

057school transgender people live in south dakota transgender people live in vermillion transgender people belong in south dakota and belong in vermilion they're part of our community and we value them as such in the last three weeks i have kind of made a personal point to use public restrooms all around town um i've used public restrooms at walmart at library businesses up and down main street at roadhouse restaurant at both prentiss and barstow park at the pool and right before the meeting started right out there in zero of those places did anybody ask to see my birth certificate none of you have seen my birth certificate none of you know for a fact what genitals i may or may not possess we're all okay in all of those places with people making decisions to use a

058bathroom that fits their gender identity i don't ask you what's on your birth certificate when you go into the bathroom i trust that you like everybody else in our community makes responsible choice to do that we heard that exact same statement from the letter from a student that was was read earlier um the student is already using bathrooms that align with their gender identity all over town without incident there aren't bathroom attacks going on in vermilion that i've heard of i think i would have heard walmart isn't having a rash of people being assaulted in restrooms and transgender people are already using the bathrooms that align with their gender identity in those places this is not a dangerous issue this is an issue that we need to support our transgender students we need to support

059all of our students um and i know that the parents who spoke last week the parents who spoke tonight and will follow me i'm a parent of two kids in the district i know we've all got our kids best interests at heart but i'd ask you to rely on when you make this decision the actual facts of what happens when these policies are enacted as we heard in iowa this has been the policy for what eight or ten years now and nothing has happened there has not been a spike in crime there has not been a rash of bathroom attacks what has happened is that transgender students across iowa have felt supported by their schools i hope that vermilion can be a place that supports our students that same way [Applause] jacob skelton hello yes

060i'm jacob skelton uh thank you so much for taking time to hear from the public today regarding the proposed locker room and restroom changes our family is blessed to have two daughters and one son we love them more than anyone could know as i know the other parents in the room also feel the same way as well and my job as their fathers to protect them and raise them in a healthy environment which is safe and helps them thrive they should be respectful of anyone regardless of their if they share the same viewpoints or world views and that is something that we stress in our home and i know the parents in this room do as well the bathroom policy change concerns me because of the risk to the policy being exploited to harm my

061children it's important to note that from the start the concern is not with people identifying by genders different from their biological one it's not that they're more likely to be sexual predators but rather it presents access to our students in their most vulnerable states which either students or adults may be tempted to exploit as a former teenager with raging hormones i can definitely say like many of you in the room i know it would have been an incredible temptation for me and my friends to not let curiosity go over when we remove very clear biological definitions of who's allowed in our most vulnerable locations history has proven that it results in bad outcomes for example in the uk there is an 18 year old person identifying as a woman who sexually assaulted a 10 year

062old girl in a female restroom at a supermarket this is exactly the ages of our school district so i have some questions mainly about the policy as it relates to locker rooms i'm happy to provide them with you because i have quite a few so first question would be what are the current privacy measures already in place for when a student needs to change their clothing what are the current privacy measures for a student who desires to use the shower in a locker room do they have an individual sealed stalls for usage who is the victim if my daughter is uncomfortable showering with somebody who clearly has the anatomy of a male at what point does a person who has a male anatomy staring at my daughter who does not have a male anatomy at

063what point does that activity become abuse of the girls in that locker room or does it and who will police this standard at all times are we going to have somebody in the locker rooms at all time to police this type of standard as a parent of a young boy i would also have concerns about unnecessary necessary risk of putting someone clearly with the anatomy of a female in a male locker room with a number of other young males this is harmful to both the males and the student who has female anatomy would the female anatomy student be required to cover up differently than the males in that locker room and would that be discrimination at that point now regarding the policy sample 3 the policy reads that vermilion school district wants to foster an

064educational environment that is safe and welcoming this particular change removes both actually for from my family if the policy if it becomes policy we would feel very unsafe for our children and do not feel welcome at vermilion schools and this would break our heart because our kids love school we homeschooled last year because of covid they love being at school it's a break your heart this would certainly affect our decision to have anything to do with the school district going forward again that breaks my heart it does continuing with the policy as it states as well as comply with local state federal law specifically i'm curious as to what existing laws you're referring to as i understand it there has not been a specific law about bathroom usage and locker room usage regarding those who

065desire to use one that does not match their biological one of the most recent supreme court cases concerning people who identify as a gender that does not match their biological one was bostock versus clayton county georgia in that case the court ruled that an employer discriminated against the transgendered person in an employment decision the court specifically did not touch the restroom topic so i'm just interested as to what specific law you're referring to reading more into the proposed policy at the end it says that it requires that the identity be consistently asserted some questions i have on that would be how often could a person or a student change their status if they determine that they would like to change from the one they previously disclosed these are clearly defined and measurable ways to avoid

066exploitation of that when it comes to the topic of how adults are handled in this situation regarding the policy does the proposed policy apply to adults who are either teachers volunteers or visitors from another school for sports for example if so how do you plan to screen this and who is the enforcement personnel to ensure people do not exploit the policy if you do not allow adults under this policy by your own definition that is that discrimination under the approval procedure i would like to see a statement added that both the current school board and the parents of the student would be held liable for any damages as a result enacting the policy can you wrap this up in about a minute we just went off yep i'm just on my last page sorry um

067just need to be clear on who uh would be the liable party um in regards to confidentiality which i think is important how will staff keep track of the policy if the plan is filed confidentiality um as far as without knowledge so wit for example if an 18 year old male walks into a women's locker room how would students or adults know if that person is part of that that group i know one of the best ways to police something is have the students do it and so how would they how would they know if it's all confidential even the university does not have this type of practice and lastly when we consider voting for a new building this proposed change in the private areas is very concerning and because of the current direction of

068the school board i cannot in good conscience support an increase in my taxes to help build a new building that would have these type of policies in place i really appreciate you guys concerns from hearing from me as a father thank you [Applause] ryan church thank you my name is ryan church i came here tonight not knowing actually if i was going to address the board or not and i finally decided that i should i don't have facts laid out that i googled i don't have anything like that i just have my feelings as a father of two children both of them are boys they identify as boys because they're boys both of them are uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a bathroom with somebody in a female's body both of them are uncomfortable with

069sharing the locker room with somebody in a female's body i understand that we want to make all students feel included all students feel safe that's great but by doing this we're already making several students uncomfortable and not want to attend school not want to go to the bathroom so like your legal counsel said and was pointed out earlier this is not an issue that we should rush right now the policy is fine let's work take some time get a policy that includes the safety of everybody thank you [Applause] please state your name when you approach the mic katherine barkland i have two students in the district thank you for your time on the issue tonight i appreciate the rules committee and i appreciate the commentary on in the background research thank you for doing that

070i appreciate waiting a few weeks so that this issue that was charged at the last meeting could have a bit more discussion and and um information um i have two points that i'd like to address today um the first one has to do with um the the policies that that were prevent that are out on the website so policy three that was out there and the term consistently asserted gender um i will echo one of the other statements that was made tonight in that transgendered girls are girls you won't know who's a transgender girl and who's a trans who's not your daughter at school doesn't know if the girl next to her that's her best friend is transgender or not these transgender students don't want everyone to see their genitals that's the point so the

071comment about locker rooms yes we would like some private changing areas in locker rooms yes showers have the ability to close most of the time you will have no clue if the person in the restroom with you is transgender or not that's the point you don't need to know the genitalia of anyone in the bathroom with you so transgender girls are girls just girls transgender boys are just boys that's it it's just girls and boys there's no difference the other comment that i'd like to make is in reference to your decision about whether to make a change to policy or a change to practice and i understand that that is that is a hard choice to make i understand that you trust the teachers in this district and you trust the administrators in this district

072you trust the principles you trust the superintendent and you believe truly that everyone has the best interest at heart and i believe that also i don't think that any of our administrators or any of our teachers have any desire to engage in something that would discriminate against a student that's not their purpose that's not the reason that they do their job but allowing the practice to be administered at an individual class level or a school level or by the superintendent leaves it open for interpretation that's really problematic and it tells the students of any transgender kid that they have to renegotiate the accommodations that they're going to get every time they switch class and every time they switch building and every time you get a new teacher to the district or a new principal to

073the district you have to determine how they are going to implement that your job as a school board is to make their job easier to do so it's not a question of whether it's a simple policy or an elaborate policy i bristled a little bit at the implication that the first one is a simple policy and the second one is an elaborate policy because all we're doing is changing who has to make the decision if you go with what superintendent alvi said was the simple policy you just removed yourself as a school board from that interpretation and passed it on down to the building administrators you've made it harder for them to do their job and be supportive you've given them no cover and it's your job as the board to give them cover so

074i would strongly urge you that this needs to be a policy change not a practice change a practice is not sufficient it needs to be in policy thank you for your time [Applause] [Music] hi everyone jessica master smith i am a parent of two cisgender females in the district and i stand before you tonight as an ally for those members of our community who commonly experience discrimination as a community we must support the educational and emotional development of our children this includes allowing children to use a bathroom that reflects their gender identity and presentation to the world please discontinue the discriminatory practices against transgender children in our district based upon comments during this and previous meetings on this topic many separate topics are being conflated and presented as being related which they are not two

075of those topics are bathroom use and sexual assault each of these topics are important and each of them should be considered by this board in their own right sexual assault is common one out of every six females experiences and is a victim of an attempted or completed rape persons who are transgender are not the perpetrators in that violence in fact a person who is transgender is more likely to be the victim of that violence persons who are transgender are three times as likely to be the victim of sexual assault one out of every two transgender children experience sexual assault this board needs to maintain their focus on the current issue of bathroom use at the last board meeting the legal counsel for our district clearly stated that if this entity does not adopt changes to

076the bathroom practice our district will lose any legal filings against it this board has no choice but to move forward with the proposed changes to the bathroom policy and i support the third option which is the most inclusive bathroom policy thank you [Applause] are there others who wish to address the board [Music] my name is hannah mostard i was not intending on coming up to speak um and i should say that my opinions that i'm sharing are my own i am an employee of the district and they do not necessarily reflect others it's just simply my own opinions that i want to share with you tonight um the people that have spoken ahead of me have made amazing points and frankly whittled down a lot of what i was going to say um because i

077i very much support an inclusive restroom policy for our district um i am uh currently the librarian at jolly elementary school and one of the things that i have been discussing this month with my students is the idea of being in uh inclusive of all people not this it's not at all related directly to what we're speaking of here but the general idea of being inclusive all religions cultures races genders identities all of those things and sharing with them all of the amazing literature children's books that teach us about people who we do not know enough about because they may be different than what we're used to interacting with or who we're used to interacting with and i feel like a lot of the things that i've heard from people uh in a in opposition

078to some of these policies is perhaps because they don't know people these people that may have different have made different choices or different have different upbringings um and i would encourage people i tell the students the reason that we learn about people who are different from us is that we find out often that different is not we're not that different and the different can be good we all have our own unique things uh but when we don't learn about people who may have different opinions or different upbringings that's when we're quick to judge and i fee i hear a lot of judgment coming from many people and i would like to encourage people to step back and consider learning about the people these are people uh and before we judge because the things i'm hearing

079are very full of very much full of judgment um so i believe that's that's my main the thing i mainly wanted to say um the other thing i could add is that what catherine said was exactly the other thing that i was going to mention um to people who feel like their children are going to be approached in a bathroom who looks different than what their idea of a boy or a girl looks like is just not that's just not how it works and i think many of of us know that um so the idea yes i see it all the time if a boy walks in a boy walks into the girl's bathroom accidentally oh no but that's not the that's not what hap what's happening here that is an accident and a silly

080hehe giggle young kids these these children they don't want to be outed they want to be accepted with for with everyone else and so that situation of someone freaking out if there was a boy in the girl's bathroom or a girl in the boys bathroom with with these students this that's not what we're talking about we're talking about simply wanting to be accepted so i believe that's i'll conclude my statements at that point but i after being here felt like i needed to say something thank you [Applause] others hi my name is dave sanderson i my oldest just started preschool this year i've got two more down in the pipeline i'm primarily speaking as a parent i'm a former high school teacher as well my old district actually implemented a policy similar to the ones

081that are being looked at in this district back in 2016 and i would just like to note as a former teacher in contact with my colleagues there a lot of the concerns about safety and all that i have yet to hear anybody voice anything that actually happened in that district which is i know anecdotal but that also is in keeping with most of the research out there that has been presented here tonight i think one of the things i would like to just say as a community member is i do think we do owe an apology to our trans students in the schools last i checked school has been in session for over a month and this is something where as we are waiting for a policy direction on this what is currently in place

082is still affecting kids and what we are going to be seeing in the future will also impact them and i think if anything i would beseech you tonight to come away with a hard this is what we are going to do because as much as i appreciate the sentiment of we need to get a wide a variety and we want to hear from the community this is something that impacts our students right here right now and i worry that that sometimes is not being considered as importantly as it should be i am a little bit disappointed that this meeting is happening as basically in terms of how it was scheduled in terms of the fact that it is september 22nd because this is an issue that i think is not for those of us who

083worked in the k-12 system or are in the k-12 system isn't something that came out of nowhere and that is something as a former k-12 teacher i don't really find it acceptable to be approaching this and addressing this discussion and saying we need more time in the middle of a school year when it impacts our kids in loco parentis is one of the main sentiments behind all teacher ethics doesn't matter what state you're in i taught nebraska my wife's taught in minnesota she teaches in south dakota now in all of those states as an educator we have a duty of care to each and every child in the district every child in my classroom is owed that duty of care this is not a popularity contest with what we do it's not about what decision

084is the most popular in the community it is a decision that is right for our students as individuals when we were talking about trans students this is an issue coming from the office of civil rights we are talking about civil rights here that is something that to me is not something that we treat as a negotiation point trans students have rights we have addressed this repeatedly with public comment already i would beseech you that please move forward on this in an expeditious manner because we owe it to our students i think we own apology to some of our students if we end up changing the policy to what i believe it should have been to begin with at the beginning of the school year but i will beseech you that we please move on this

085quickly thanks for your time [Applause] are there others hello good to see you again at this meeting and uh always a warm welcome and hug to everyone and everyone out here i'm really grateful for the civil matter we're able to discuss some really fundamental differences in some areas and some areas that aren't so different for us and i i guess what i was thinking i'm a clinical psychologist and that's i think the thing that i want to create the most when someone walks into my office is a safe place i mean that's that's the fundamental sometimes we're trained to like take a bunch of questions down i don't do that i just i get to know the person the first time they come in and we just talk and i usually introduce them to my

086family um i i talk about you know who i am a little bit and it automatically generates in that person a sense of safety to share who they are what's going on and and i think as a school board that's really the question you know how do we create a safe place for kids who are trans kids you know who um who who are just kids that's all they are and and you know you i i was reading about kids who have to you know this is like kindergarteners first graders who have to make up lies to justify where they're going to the nurses bathroom you know and these little kids that's not something they should have to feel when they're when they're getting educated i mean you know that life is hard enough that

087we don't need to add those kind of layers of you know where they have to do something in a sense unethical to get their own needs met and so i just want to us to think about it one other issue i wanted to address is in some of the policy proposals there's discussion about um like psychologists psychiatrists doctor thing and i don't think that's necessary i think parents know their kids and the whole the world the w path which is the world professional association for transgender health is really starting to push a model that's called informed consent where for adults anyway the adult doesn't need a letter from their health care providers saying this is who they are what they are they're just treated like anyone else if i go in and i need a

088mole removed the doc's going to tell me here's what's going on with it here's what your risks are here's you know what you need to do and they let me make that decision and in the case of minors then of course it's their parents who do that but we don't need the intervention of sort of gatekeepers like psychologists or doctors or others to do that for them um and those were the couple of things i wanted to to share with you today so thank you [Applause] is there anyone else who wishes to address the ball come on forward hi all i'm catherine johnson i have two kiddos in the school district one in junior kindergarten and one in fifth grade i spoke last time about this and still the same feelings i just wanted to

089share that on my way out the door this evening my daughter asked where i was going mentioned i was coming to the school board meeting and told her we were talking about the bathroom policy and she said oh have they fixed it yet you know and i said well i hope they will and you know she she was hopeful too because even at 10 years old she understands that her friends shouldn't be having to go to different restrooms and you know our littles are watching us make these decisions and it's just really important that we do so and we do it the right way and i hope it happens soon um because it's a lot for the children that are are having to do this right now so that's all i've got thank you [Applause]

090anyone else okay well certainly uh thanks to everyone who's spoken the board will obviously have their opportunity to continue this discussion and i encourage you to stay and listen and continue to provide that input in other forums and again i i know this isn't the easiest topic to discuss but i also echo those who have commented about the importance of civility and my thanks for that i again your interest in the quality of a public education is a very important thing and it's what makes a community stronger so with that i will open it up for board discussion we do have a number of uh related issues as damon pointed out earlier we have kind of three potential drafts one is a practice one is a policy there are certainly elements about um to summarize

091some of the things i've noted what constitutes assertion of a consistent gender identity we've also engaged in some facilities review because people have asked about that and certainly this informs what we do with the planning for a new building to ensure safe restroom use for everyone and then i think for me another issue is really you know who that that level of who needs to be involved in the i don't want to say consent that's not the who who's who needs to know i mean in an ideal world no one needs to know that's kind of what most of us live with and but that is something we do need to talk about as part of this as we go on so there certainly may be other issues that come up so i will open

092up for discussion i was just wondering um i know that mr alvey we had talked at a previous meeting about um investigating some like what the cost might be or what some options might be for creating greater safety specifically in the locker rooms at the middle school in high school and that's been a a concern that's been voiced here i realize with other happenings in the district that that it might not have been possible but we have we been able to find some information on what it would take for us to be able to make those accommodations to the locker room spaces yes good question i do not have costs this evening i apologize for that but we have had a look at that we have basically investigated all of our facilities on campus our

093high school is actually quite prepared um they had to remodel several years ago which includes individual stalls uh in the shower areas although they're just curtains over each of those stalls so there might be some enhancements and needed in terms of a changing area outside of the shower so people that enter the shower can change clothes within that closed area to walk out that place that end of the locker room is segregated from the meeting area of the locker room once again it's it is sort of traditional though that the changing area assuming you're not getting completely out of your clothes is is a large communal area like most of us experienced as as youngsters so uh but it does have the availability for some some mild upgrades there the middle school is in a

094completely different opposite direction it has none of those safeguards and therefore the showers there are completely communal as well as the changing space so that would require us and what we're asking our contractors to provide is individual stalls similar to the high school so we are working on that but and of course at the elementary we don't have the locker room issues at all at either of those locations so middle school is has considerable work high school is overall in pretty good shape but could use an upgrade thank you how about the current elementary schools the new proposed when an elementary school will have individual restrooms so it'll be a non-issue but what is that jolly in austin today yeah currently it's what most of us would consider a traditional communal bathroom at both jolly

095and austin actually at the high school middle school it's the same where you would go into a boys restroom and there would be urinals and or regular closed stalls maybe up to three urinals and three closed stalls and then of course in a female restroom would be six closed stalls that's how it is at both jolly austin middle and high school but at the at the lower elementary levels at the new uh prospect of the new building we do have uh it's segregated where the architect is creating single individual stalls as part of that alternate plan so we could go completely away from the communal restroom that most of us are used to i'm interested in hearing about any thoughts concerns from our attorney about paul's the third policy like i said at the beginning

096i have issues with all three of the policies i have less issues with policy three than i do with the other policies policy two frankly i feel that jfab is sufficient as it is it clearly states gender identity is uh you know included in non-discrimination and i i feel that that adequately includes locker and restroom facilities under that umbrella i think policy three just needs some more clarification and more pointed precise language but if you are going to in you know proceed with the policy policy three would be the one that i would recommend tailoring to the needs of the district and just to be sure because i have some different drafts are are you speaking about the one that starts the vermilion school district understands gender identity to be that's the one that with

097some clarification and more precise language you feel is is the most adequate the most adequate thank you and what are some of the things that you think should be clarified there um as was addressed by the community uh you know consistently asserted gender identity right um there's some language in the opinions just to be more precise and consistent consistently persistently and insistently and further hawaii uses language sincerely held gender identity if that one might be a little less precise than consistently asserted but as mr peterson pointed out it's one of those things where we don't need a committee of 12 different people to determine what's appropriate for each individual because the issue here is discrimination that that's the issue just plain and simple i think one of the things that we might want to clarify

098or that so in our definition of consistently asserted gender it says it may be determined in collaboration of any of the following and then it lists a it provides a list there and so it includes parent guardian counselor and or building administrator but it doesn't specifically say like i'm assuming this is the student you know establishing this in collaboration so is it enough to have a student establish that in collaboration with their guardian and so if they have communicated that to their parents that you know this is who i am this is what i'm going to do or is that something that needs to be communicated with a school counselor or a building like is there a what are the specific expectations there because i think that in particular is doesn't make that really clear

099i'm not sure i would know as a parent what exactly i had to do under that under that language because you use the language may be determined that's kind of doesn't have to be but could be a collaboration agreement so based on what i'm hearing we should look at going towards policy sample three correct right um and if we want to give this some more time perhaps we could have another meeting shortly but not extensively to maybe visit with legal counsel and try to beef up this policy or restrict either way how we look at it just get that policy and policy true format and kind of go through some of that language and then be able to provide that again to the public for another discussion and then after that it would take two

100readings for approval is that correct that's correct um further uh you know the decision between practice and policy is purely for the board right but as far as me advising the board practice is the least restrictive step before policy and the current practice like i stated earlier is deficient so you can resolve the deficiency by changing the practice you don't necessarily have to implement a policy so we could because our current practice is deficient we could amend our practice now and then move forward with the read the readings that are necessary to adopt a policy would that be safe to say yes i think that would be a good idea given given some of the the comments and concerns and given my own concerns about the students currently in the district who are patiently awaiting

101a decision on this process given our the interpretation that the new policy language for sample two was not really any different from our current policy which says we won't discriminate i think we discussed at the last meeting that our practice is out of sync with what our current policy has established and so i think moving forward with that practice change in anticipation of of revising adapting this version three the sample three to make sure that we have clarification about what we mean by consistently asserted um so that we can have that in the policy language for a first reading at the next meeting and then have time for feedback before that second reading yeah i initially had stated and i thought a lot about this talked with folks you know that i i thought the

102practice was the ideal approach that i didn't like enumerating rights where i thought rights were already established um i do in reviewing and listening comments i do think ultimately what will likely be needed is a policy change and so i i do support that action in that direction i also think that uh you know for those who are asking you know what direction is this going um and where it's coming from i think it's it's fairly it's obvious to me but if it's not stated it's you know i think nationally we've already seen the trend moving toward inclusive restroom use um and addressing that in a number of states and i expect that's where things will go and i think that's where you know we're now talking about the details which is what the board

103has to do and they include everything from you know how do we what do we do when we need to make changes to a building and what's what's adequate for that i am also comforted a little bit that south dakota high school activities their policy with regard to the issue of locker rooms which are the area where we i think are even though we made some changes i think that's the one that is you know we need to make more changes to facilities to be prepared there um high school south dakota high school activities has very clear language that someone's not going to simply walk into a locker room that that their standards are much higher than anything we're talking about at this point but there are still lots of good questions and there is

104some work to be done and so what i hear you saying is that because the the activity in the locker rooms is essentially governed by participation in athletics that that that already covers that portion of the locker room usage it is in the the sense of athletic participation it wouldn't be with respect to jim and p.e right right that's that's a separate issue for me um but you know the question raised about visiting schools and what do we do in that setting and i think that is i'm not i'm not trying to say we want to push this off on anyone uh you know in the comments i believed that we would get the guidance we were told we would get in august and to my knowledge we've still never received guidance from the federal

105department of education and we were hoping to not you know hoping to know what their language would be so we could incorporate it and we've still yet to receive it and i think the board has wisely decided we needed to proceed without that guidance which put us where we are so it doesn't address everything but it does address part of it for me [Music] so i think after hearing everybody tonight you know we i think first and foremost everybody knows everybody has rights everybody wants their kids and the board safe everybody wants privacy but i think it's council said or others there's still a lot of unanswered questions that were raised by a couple folks um council said don't rush it it's one of our bigger decisions i think we may need to step back

106a bit i know not everybody agrees we do accommodate today it doesn't seem it's everybody not may not agree with it but given time i think we could brainstorm some of the detail answered questions the public has that were raised tonight that we can't answer we could give it to committee and finance to work out what our costs so we really understand it we could give it back to policy call it a practice and probably work out some of the details or come back to a group and get those questions answered to the public or maybe a brainstorm where there's more questions and then look at that i think to me that's reasonable and we are working forward to see where we do end up but then we have answers to the community we ensure

107we answer any questions we can on safety we know what is prudent from a fiscal responsibility we can or can't do so i guess my question sorry carol go ahead i'm concerned that we are currently using a practice that we know to be deficient and we've had two public meetings for input so to me it seems reasonable for us to move forward with changing a practice which we know to be deficient [Music] and i can respect that but how can we give guidance to look at implementing or something that we don't know how we could say here's a practice can you implement it tomorrow with administrators or people you have to think and walk through that we have to tell the public what will that what will from the safety of all kids be i

108don't i couldn't go do that tonight what would be different tonight to go implement something i don't think we can give that guidance direction that was my intent coming here tonight it was more to listen to the public keep moving it along so we are making steps at a time but i cannot vote for anything tonight i don't have enough data i don't have enough data from the board of different information i have questions as some of the public do that's just my opinion i enjoy kind of like the the bond we've created a website we're really helping facilitate and put that info out you know really seek those questions just like mr skelton had um and kind of addressing those issues and really seeking those questions that we can adequately address them i think

109mr raleigh with your research you probably have a lot of those answers but you don't know what everybody's kind of questions are can we seek that input and kind of do that kind of q a and then again maybe have another public hearing that we could maybe go through all those questions and answer just to continue to educate and look look towards that maybe final draft that first reading of a policy i think that the policy committee did an excellent job of reviewing that material and i really appreciated the legal brief that was provided to us that i think did an excellent job of summarizing the the legal case work there i think this differs from the bond in an important way and that you know how how we choose to to invest in our

110community and our tax dollars is something that i think you know it is a public choice as a choice that everybody should have a vote on and should have a say in but when we're talking about individual rights and we're talking about individual civil rights it's not something that i think we we take a majority vote on or that we actually we know what we need to do from a legal standpoint we know what we need to do to for to protect the rights of these individual kids i'm not sure that having and and you know multiple listening sessions of of same repeated arguments gets us anywhere more toward a a better policy i don't i don't think that's what gets us there i think the research that the policy committee did is what got

111us to a really good policy i do like the idea though of having a like an faqs or a question and answer that we could publish as we've adopted the policy to address those concerns so that where there are community concerns that haven't been sort of fully addressed in this venue that we can provide an articulation of exactly what that looks like so what does this mean for parents of transgender kids what does this mean for cisgender kids who want greater privacy and how do they request access or you know whatever those questions might be what's the timeline for us creating revisions to the locker room those types of things i think that we could address those in a q a to make sure that the public felt really comfortable in understanding our decision without

112holding up making the policy change because again this protecting the protecting the rights of individuals within our district isn't something that we need that i think significantly more public input is really going to change where we're going on so then let me ask a question for our attorney you said don't rush it think it through is there anything you elaborate because i feel right now we're rushing something that we don't know personally we don't have enough i don't have enough data to understand want to be more comfortable some questions raised tonight that we give feedback to all constituents here or others that aren't i don't really want to drag this out i mean we do accommodate it may not be appropriate to some but there's other folks that said well i'm going to be i'm

113not comfortable this way so i think it's our duty as a board to give direction damon area talk to administrators and and lay things out but back i'd like to ask our attorney what do you think we need to if we need more time does it work it through or just any comment you wish to make if you deem that something needs to be done immediately i would advise taking the least restrictive approach even if that is handling it on a case-by-case basis um because as i've stated the current policy is deficient and if you back it off until you know today we're gonna handle it on a case-by-case basis and just exactly how we're gonna handle it maybe that's the way to do it but i i don't feel that that's the long-term solution

114i guess i think from what i'm hearing is a lot of really good heartfelt discussion on this and it's actually the second or third time we've heard some of these exact things and the longer that i've looked at this material and talked to people in on both sides of the situation the better understanding i've had in gaining more and more insight on um in a perfect world for for administrators uh i agree with shane in the sense having another public forum really probably isn't going to gain as much in terms of of of data because we already know where people's thoughts are and we understand the literature gaining a lot of respect for what the lawyers and the attorneys help guide us with but i also agree with jim in the sense that if we

115had a little more time with our administrative team to say answer the questions of parents that are really concerned on the opposite side about um whether it's it's locker rooms how can you assure my son or daughter is gonna have better privacy and i could come back to you at a future meeting whether it's next week or the following week and say we can invest a certain amount of dollars towards these types of mitigations in those those facilities that will ensure your son or daughter can get into a private spot to change and therefore they're not feeling uncomfortable it doesn't matter sometimes boys are just uncomfortable with boys and girls are just uncomfortable with girls and that space is really needed for all of them and then come back and be able to say the

116middle school the same type of thing and it was mentioned earlier that maybe we need to put extensions at those those unlock or should be in the stalls in the elementary i agree with what the folks some of the folks said in the audience about there's not a bunch of radical problems that are resulting in schools as a result of these changes but i don't want to just force something on any side of this issue without having an opportunity to say i want to find a way to help solve your concerns at the end of the day there's going to be still two sides of this that maybe don't agree completely and at the end of the day the board has to make a policy and i think we all agree or procedure that we

117have to make a change that is more inclusive in our district does it mean that it will be tonight and that it will automatically be open game to all those areas tomorrow i don't i'm not comfortable there tonight uh but i'm not saying that we have to study this for three more months and put the poor folks that that have kids in this position out there longer as a way of just prolonging this i don't know i don't know if that makes sense to you to me i would like an opportunity to one tell both sides of this issue one you're being heard two this committee and this policy uh assuming this board has has heard this and we're making positive steps and changes but give us just a little more time to ensure the

118folks that are on the opposite side of this that i can get those restrooms a little bit better get those locker rooms a little bit more um you know i guess privacy so that that little bit of edge is taken off of those parents minds as well not not to discontent uh discount the things that the other folks have said that their children are waiting for this answer i hear that and we understand that and we agree that we need to make a positive change in that direction i would just like a little more time to wrap this up in a better presentation and be able to give a few more assurances that things can can really be more of a win-win for everybody if that makes sense i would like to follow damon up

119on that one uh i don't want everybody for to forget that privacy is in in and of itself a civil right right so extra privacy isn't going to be a bad thing all the way around regardless of any transgender or cisgender issues just remove that aside extra privacy is a good thing um i mean i would like this to have been resolved before school started um i i one of the things that is weighing on my mind carol had the same thought you did can we do something intermediate and then a policy and then it was actually a comment tonight which caused me some pause on that in that it puts our administrators and our teachers in a difficult situation where they don't have the cover of the authority of this board that that's not

120an absolute obviously but that did cause me to pause for a moment and think okay i think they do deserve as well as the public deserves the consistency that i'm striving for i you know i i've always believed that a practice we could say that's a district-wide practice and it's not going to change when you go from fifth grade to sixth grade but unless we put that in writing it could change from monday to tuesday and that that to me is a problem um and so i would like to know how quickly we can tweak this is you know legal consults how quickly can we get vol 3 uh option three amended uh and you know policy is always a it's gonna change over time as we encounter new issues in in this discussion which

121um you know it's an issue that's been around but there are issues that came to my attention that i had not considered as of a month ago and so but i do think we have identified a large portion of the issues we now need to begin identifying the solutions or the answers to some of those questions and i think we can do that quickly i mean i really earnestly believed we could get it done within a month we're not going to make that with policy but i do think at the time i didn't think policy was necessary i do now so the question is how quickly can policy committee do that how quickly can brent get it reviewed you know when can we get this in front of and i do think we owe it

122to the public to have it out a week in advance i mean as much detail as we can before the next meeting and if there's not a meeting that means at least a week in advance of october 12. any thoughts i agree just interpersonally without discussing too far what usually would be a fair ask is a little bit uh more of an ask now than it usually would be and i'll just leave it at that okay but i do uh appreciate and respect you know the urgency and i will do my best to honor said urgency yeah so just to clarify if our next meeting is on the 12th because it's not on our normal monday it's on a tuesday that would mean that we would have a fully revised version of sample three out

123by the fifth so that we could have a first vote on it on the 12th and then do we have to wait until the november meeting or can we have another special meeting a week after the 12th or two weeks after the you know is sort of expeditiously after that so that we could have a second reading of that policy without waiting another month yeah i mean i think we you know we we've called a number of special meetings so that's certainly not out of the question um i wouldn't want that to be you know two days later i think which would be the minimum we were allowed but you know i think two weeks later um you know is you know i started looking counting i i do want to make sure you know

124this time we got this language out a day in advance i just want people to have something more than 24 hours does it have to be a week probably not five days might be sufficient so get us to the middle of that week but plenty of time in you know over the weekend which you know gives us really only two weeks and that's a that's a tough call i would support moving forward with the anticipation of having a first reading on the 12th of the final version of this if we can if we can move very quickly after that to have a special meeting on like say the 18th or the 19th somewhere in that next week to be able to have a second reading on that i do think as carol's pointed out our

125current practices is out of line with our current policy and i think that also puts our administrators in a tough position i think our our current practice has required these families to out themselves to the administration of their buildings and so they likely know who they are and can can address this issue with them at least the ones that they currently know of to be able to change the practice in advance of the policy change just to make sure that we are in line with what our current policy actually says we have in the meantime and so that they're not waiting for that and then in the meantime we can continue to invest in these privacy concerns for the locker room spaces [Music] so currently we reasonably accommodate we may say it's it's good or

126not we continue that till we go through this policy and look at everything correct no i'm saying that we end our currently our policies are discriminatory in that we we call them reasonable accommodations but they're discriminatory because they don't allow the students we do discriminate based on gender identity as far as access to sex-segregated facilities and our policy that says we do not discriminate against gender identity is is out of line with that so i would say that on those those cases that principals already know of they can reach out to those families and say you know in order to be in line with our policies you're no longer required to use a separate facility that we deemed equal before but the whole policy will be changed and because the the policy the clarification that

127we're wanting about consistently asserted and some of sort of how does how is that communicated what does that look like that is a non-issue for these families who have already had these conversations with those administrators in this i mean this addresses the concern that i was bringing up and um you know my proposed act upon a practice at this time simply thinking about the students in our district right now the families in our district right now who have been waiting for this so i i understand in principle i think i'm not sure procedurally how we could act on that or whether or not it would be appropriate to to to vote on a mandate that our administrators do something in anticipation of a policy that we have yet to actually vote on that so it

128it's really uh procedurally how do we do that and is that is that appropriate for us to say do x because we told you to do x and trust that the policy is going to back you up when it comes into place just another question of clarification for myself um one of the tenets of of this was uh trying to have confidentiality and not out any kids that that may be obviously wanting this to be confidential information um how does the board feel about that tenet of this similar to the high school activities association part of the uh reason that some places have those in policy is for the protection of students because a principal that does not know the situation of the student will not be able to identify bullying happening in happening in

129a situation if they're not aware that the students maybe going through these things in a restroom or any other place so that's my first question second one is as obviously these are delicate issues and we would not want this to be broadcast to anybody other than the person who is most in contact with the kiddos which might be a principal or a classroom teacher which becomes problematic when they become high schoolers obviously because now they've got five teachers but is it just the fact that we don't want to have the conversation or that it is discriminatory to ask for that information um is it is it a compromise that folks that are concerned about this policy change would have some comfort in knowing well somebody at that school is vetting all of these situations in

130other words i trust the administration at my child's school that if there are students of using bathrooms that they identify with that that administrator is taking care of it i as a parent will never know that john doe student will never know those students are in those restroom facilities like some of you noted but is that something that is a safety feature that is important enough that we would consider that as part of the policy in other words declaration from the parent or a health care provider or whatever to the principal in that building is the way to ensure that this is vetted out is that do i understand where i'm getting it so it's more than notice to the school versus the documentation right right yeah we're just providing so but notice to the

131school is really seeing the principal and saying hey my son or daughter is in this situation i would like the accommodation that they or they would like the accommodation they can use the restroom that they affirm with and as a partner i want you to know that so one you can be an advocate for my child but two then the process is well vetted in other words the principal now will be able to say you know i can safely say assert that this is going to go forward because these families and this these uh students are protected now does that make sense i don't know if i was clear on that i don't know how the board feels about that or if it's an appropriate topic you're not talking about an approval process you're talking

132about a notification process declaration basically and it sensed that that principle with any parent that would ever come to them and say well i really don't like your policy on these restrooms i just think it's a free-for-all the principal could say we vet this when students or people in these situations are in our building we have an uh a process that this is vetted you could take our word for it that this is an affirmed identity and that this is you know not that these people would ever know who these kids are but that process that there's a process in place that ensures that a trusted adult in that school like any other policy that's in our manual is well thought out and it's vetted and it protects kids is it unreasonable and tell me

133if it is that's why i'm asking the board because you have to make this policy is it unreasonable to ask people to share that declaration with the building principle so they can be the advocate for that student i think the difference is maybe the word vetted to me maybe sounds like uh negotiate and i don't know the dictionary on it but something more like a negotiation going back and forth maybe versus just like a flat out notice to the school or i think you could sit down and just tell them versus a conversation that may become a negotiation type situation so i like that we could provide notice to the school i just don't like it to be a back and forth vetting yeah i would agree i think that i don't want to put

134our administrators in a position of them having to be a decider on whether a gender identity is consistently you know affirmed or not right like i don't want them to have to make a decision well you know you know johnny is presenting this way and so i feel comfortable that his parents said but you know over here i don't you know i feel that's a very uncomfortable position for our school administrators definitely deciding which students sort of qualify and which ones don't i think communicating to that the principal makes sense and i think you're right had them having being aware so that they're able to think about and ask about appropriate pronoun usage and ask about sort of what what what accommodations need to be made and what that's going to look like that seems

135um a very reasonable request i was just the the vetting would would make me a little bit concerned and i think for any parents that and a part of the one of the things that's really nice about that um sample c or that policy that we're moving toward is any parents who feel or any student that feels at all uncomfortable using um the shared bathrooms can can request use of that single stall facility so those single stall facilities are still available to students so any student cisgender transgender that wants more privacy just wants more privacy because they want more privacy has access to that facility and is made aware that that's available to them i'd i'd like to clarify one point uh regarding safety and you know the sexual assault concerns um i feel that

136the current policies in place do a sufficient job of protecting against that exact issue you have a girl that goes into the boy's bathroom or a boy that goes in the girl's bathroom there's going to be disciplinary actions from the administration right and without sounding too crass you know sexual predators really don't care about laws let alone policies right so they're going to be continue to be sexual predators regardless well and i think that's important to to remember too that currently our our building administrators have the ability to you know students lose the privilege to go to the bathroom all the time for misbehavior usually thankfully it's not the types of safety behaviors that we're talking about it's you know playing in the sink water or wetting toilet paper or something like that right so

137they're i mean there it it is a it is something that you know a responsibility that you have to behave appropriately in the bathroom and if you if you can't do that then certainly any student regardless of their gender identity could be asked to use the single stall facility because of misbehavior right and so i think that our building administrators would still retain that regardless of this policy change and it's also worth noting that our buildings are secure buildings so that you know we're not you don't walk in off the street and just come in to use the restroom they're not public restrooms during the school day so i'm summarizing what i'm hearing is that we think well not think we're going to set our goal is to have a first reading october 12th and

138our i i've asked that no one's backed me up on this let's try to get this out more than 24 hours in advance of the meeting um end of that week so we have certainly you know i really like five days um for that reading and then we would strive for scheduling something prior to the before the november meeting for the second reading i would like damon when you are working to either get the finance committee or your building committee involved with you know what the bids are contractors to be fiscally responsible so we know that and again just i think we need to take our time and understand it all and i think everybody here has best interest at heart safety and privacy and take her time i do think it has to be

139out more than 24 hours it should be about five days and everybody in this room has rights so we just gotta look at the whole picture and understand it okay other comments or discussion questions so damon the public can expect online would be the place where the um will be sent is there a way to like link that in the like the school reach that we would put out is there a way to like just direct link just make a little bit easier yeah one of our techies will make sure we could do perfect and same with maybe the way that they can make comment as well by you know doing her email on the vermillion school board email address that way they can address their comments as well make it well known and accessible

140other information requests last question the gentleman i forget his name right now posed a lot of questions to us are we going to write those down and respond back somewhere so the community can see them or have a dialogue if other community members have questions so and answers work it through yeah thanks i was just going to mention that is is is those everybody that's been here tonight if you've got additional thoughts or commentary that we either uh didn't get to tonight or maybe comes up after you leave please reach out to myself or the output to make sure that the vermilion school board emails on that website uh but jacob any of those specific questions sent to me and we'll get those addressed and see if we can find some answers to those and

141get that back out so thank you okay that i believe ends our agenda item i do have a quick question because we have a separate executive session scheduling issue do we have that meeting scheduled on a completely separate issue i don't have it uh but i'll be able to have it by tomorrow morning okay so we will have that meeting yeah i've got some still have some emails to make sure but i think you've all probably replied back what day works for you on that so i'll make sure to get that out in the morning okay did you say that louder i make a motion to adjourn second it's been moved by rachel seconded by carol to adjourn all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed we are adjourned