Secondary Welcoming Schools PD - Lesson Plan and School System Resources

Secondary Welcoming Schools PD

Please complete the following four steps:

Step 1: Watch Minus18 Trans101 Video

Step 2: Read about students' rights at school

Step 3: Read tips about how to improve your school information system

Step 4: Read about student names and well-being data

Step 1: Watch Minus18 Trans101 Video

Minus18 is Australia's national organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) youth. We're young people leading change, building social inclusion and advocating for an Australia free from homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

Step 2: Students' Rights At School

First Amendment:

The First Amendment protects both freedom of speech and expression.

Schools may not restrain student speech unless it will unreasonably and substantially disrupt the school environment or harm others.

Schools cannot prevent students from expressing their identity or discussing their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Equal Protection Clause:

This clause guarantees every citizen equal protection under the law.

This clause is frequently used to protect LGBTQ youth in schools who have faced unfair or discriminatory school actions.

This clause was also used in Brown vs. Board of Education to strike down state-sponsored racial segregation in schools.

FERPA:

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects the privacy of student educational records.

Title IX:

Title IX prohibits schools receiving public funding from discriminating on the basis of sex.

Based on court cases, this can be understood to prohibit discrimination, including sexual harassment, based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation and gender identity or transgender status.

Title VII:

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that protects employees against discrimination based on certain specified characteristics: race, color, national origin, sex, and religion. Under Title VII, an employer may not discriminate with regard to any term, condition, or privilege of employment.

In June 2020 the United States Supreme Court in Bostock v. Clayton County, GA ruled that federal law prohibits employers from discriminating against LGBTQ workers. The Court ruled that Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act prohibits workplace discrimination because a person is gay or transgender.

This ruling will have positive implications for the rights of transgender students to participate in sports aligned with their gender identity and for the rights of transgender and non-binary students to have full access to restrooms and locker rooms aligned with their gender identities.

Step 3: Improving Your School Information System

Title IX requires school districts to ensure that students are referred to by correct name and pronouns aligned with their gender identity.

There are complexities in how school districts report information to the state from their database. School districts need to figure out how to maintain students’ names and gender markers to match identity documents used for uploading to the state system and have everything else aligned with the student’s gender identity.

One solution is to work with the student information system provider to develop a field or screen that would allow the district to maintain both the student’s legal and affirmed names and pronouns. The affirmed name and pronouns could then be used to populate attendance sheets, report cards, and other school-related documents. Some districts are also working to add additional fields for non-binary pronouns.

Many districts have developed a parent/guardian consent form so that student names and gender markers can be changed in school information systems without legal documentation such as a birth certificate or passport change. Some student information systems don’t allow more than one name or gender marker. School districts are encouraged to find a different provider because this situation does not allow schools to comply with Title IX. Some systems, such as PowerSchool, have figured out more inclusive ways to code fields. Infinite Campus tracks students by a number, so names and gender markers can be changed without loss of student information.

This is an important area of advocacy for school districts. The more districts that ask for the data architecture to be changed, the more available it will be for districts to be in compliance with Title IX. As schools figure this out, there may not be 100% accuracy. But, if a student is intentionally misgendered and/or called the wrong name this could over time create a hostile school environment and result in liability.

Step 4: Student Names and Well-Being Data

In a 2017 study of 129 youths in three U.S. cities, one each in the Northeast, the Southwest and the West Coast, the University of Texas at Austin found that when transgender youth are called their name that aligns with their gender identity in places such as work, school, at home and with friends, their risk of depression and suicide drops.

The study was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Those four environments (work, school, home, and with friends) are referred to here as ”contexts.” As you can see, students who are called by their correct name in all four contexts have the lowest levels of mental health problems.

Source: Russell, S. T., Pollitt, A. M., Li, G., & Grossman, A. H. (2018). Chosen name use is linked to reduced depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, and suicidal behavior among transgender youth. Journal of Adolescent Health. https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(18)30085-5/pdf

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