Wednesday’s Mat-Su School Board meeting will take up the touchy matter of which boys may use the girls’ bathrooms, and vice versa, during the school year. The board is expected to vote to direct Direct Superintendent Randy Trani to suspend the district’s “Transgender Student Guidelines Regarding Use of Communal School Bathrooms that Match Their Gender Identity.”
The board is somewhat boxed in by a federal judge’s ruling, which enjoined the United States Department of Education’s Title IX guidance. The Biden Administration is insisting that students must be able to use communal bathrooms/locker rooms that the students say match their gender identity.
Mat-Su School District has been following that guidance in its Transgender Student Guidelines. The court action affords an opportunity to review its current policies regarding such matters, and for the District’s administration to review its guidelines regarding student use of communal bathrooms/locker rooms that match their gender identity.
The committee recommending the action believes that the District’s guidelines should be placed on hold pending such reviews. It is requesting the Board take action and if the proposal passes, the district will continue offering those transgender students use of school bathrooms that provide individual locked access and privacy, for locker room use as well. Transgender students continue to have access to communal bathrooms/locker rooms that match their biologically established gender.
The meeting starts at 6 pm at the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District Central Office, 501 N. Gulkana St., Palmer.
Meetings are streamed online at https://vimeo.com/MSBSD
The agenda can be found at this link.
