The effective date of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposed transgender student policy has been delayed until at least November 26th.
State Superintendent Jillian Balow says the Virginia Department of Education will use the next few weeks to go through public comments to the plan and possibly make some recommendations based on feedback. The feedback however, seems to outweigh actual viewing of the policies.
“We can look at the number of times that the policies have been downloaded and read, and in comparison, to the number of comments that we have on the public comment forum - it’s pretty minuscule,” Balow tells MRCTV. “So I’m not sure what document people are using to formulate their comments or opinions, but my hunch is they are not reading the policies – and they should.”
“The crux of the new policies, which really shouldn’t be controversial at all, say that we treat every single student with dignity and respect. We uphold the right and privilege that parents have to direct the upbringing of their students and be informed about what’s going on in school - and again, make sure there is not any tolerance for things like discrimination or harassment or bullying for anyone.”
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The proposed “model policies” direct the state’s school districts to adopt guidelines for transgender students to school facilities and activities that match their birth sex.
The policies include requiring written parental permission for pronoun and name changes to be used in school and giving parents the opportunity to object to any gender-related counseling.
MRCTV discusses the impact of the policy and its future with State Superintendent Jillian Balow in the video above.
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