1. Do you support the HCPSS guidelines that transgender students will have access to restrooms, changing facilities, and sports in accordance with the student’s gender identity? Please explain your answer.

Yes. Trans girls are girls. Trans boys are boys. Nonbinary students should be able to decide which facilities they’re comfortable using, which teams they’re comfortable playing on, etc.

2. Would you support a policy that codifies the guideline that requires HCPSS staff and non-official documents to use the name and pronouns that a student requests? Please explain your answer.

Yes, guidelines are great but policies are better. Guidelines can change too easily and they are hard to implement uniformly. In addition to strengthening this important and affirming customization option, a policy would include implementation procedures that would not leave things up to interpretation. Policies also provide more accountability because they can be violated — and violating a policy has more serious consequences than skirting a guideline.

3. To what age groups (if any) is it appropriate for teachers and other staff members to disclose to students that they have LGBTQ+ family members or are in a same-sex relationship?

Any staff member should be able to speak freely about the composition of their family with students and other staff without qualifiers. For example, if a straight cis female teacher can tell her preK students she’s excited to go on a trip with her husband — then a lesbian teacher ought to be able to tell a class of preK students when she’s excited to go on a trip with her wife. Families come in all forms and none of them are wrong. Knowing one another is a really important part of building strong school communities. It’s never too early for students to learn about all the ways people are different. When I was growing up, I knew about all of my teacher’s families, especially in the elementary grades. It’s natural for that to come up when you’re with kids multiple hours a day, 5 days a week.

4. What concerns, if any, do you have with students talking about themselves or family, friends, or community members related to being LGBTQ+?

As long as they are talking about themselves and others with respect and dignity, I have no concerns.

5. Should curriculum be revised to include reference to LGBTQ+ individuals, including the fact or possibility that the individuals were LGBTQ+ identified. If yes, what (if any) is the minimum grade level at which these changes should be made? Please explain your answer.

Students learn about queer historical figures all the time without any acknowledgment that they belonged to the LGBTQIA+ community. When you read Emily Dickinson outside the context of her identity and her experiences, you lose a lot of what makes her work so special. That’s a disservice to all students. Students also need exposure to curriculum that affirms their identity within ancient civilizations. Since the beginning of recorded history there have been trans people, gay people and all the other colors of the rainbow. The modern narrative that suggests these identities are new phenomena is very dangerous and patently false.

6. Should curriculum be revised to include reference to LGBTQ+ themed works of literature, art, and media, and if yes, what (if any) is the minimum grade level at which this should be done? Please explain your answer.

So much of the curriculum already features subtle references to these things and it just isn’t pointed out. HCPSS needs to do a better job showing the connection between important works of art and their relationship to LGBTQ themes. We teach our children about Hiroshima and the Holocaust at very young ages. Kids learn about slavery in elementary school. At the very least, curriculum at all levels should acknowledge the persecution and contributions of LGBTQIA+ individuals, especially as it pertains to censorship and discrimination. It’s never too early to learn about how bigotry has influenced the world around us.

7. Should HCPSS make sure schools continue to offer access to LGBTQ+ student clubs like GSAs to their students? At what levels (High? Middle? Elementary?) should this happen? Please explain your answer.

Yes, these clubs should be permitted at any school where students want to have them. And the school needs to support these students by giving them a safe, private space to meet, under the supervision of a trusted staff member.

8. Do you support the continued funding of programs for LGBTQ+ students at HCPSS such as employing an LGBTQ initiatives specialist and rainbow representatives within the schools? Please explain your answer.

Yes. I would like to see this position mandated by COMAR so it’s not vulnerable to budget cuts.

9. What changes would you like to see made to the way HCPSS handles identification, reporting, interventions, and prevention of bullying?

The phones need to go. They play such an outsized role in our students’ mental and emotional health challenges. Reporting should never put more burden on the target and it shouldn’t put them at risk of harm at home either. A lot of lawmakers and school leaders excuse flimsy protections for LGBTQIA+ by citing the lack of data. We need better ways of collecting demographic data that includes identification of LGBTQIA+ students. Interventions should not re-traumatize students and as a trained mediator and ombudsman, I know how crucial it is for people who don’t know what they’re doing to refrain from trying to mitigate disputes.

10. What measures should the school system take to prevent suicide among the student body?

School Building Culture and Climate is everything. There are students who would rather die than go to school. There are parents who would prefer for their child to be truant than risk another day in a place where they want to die. When things are that bad, no amount of crisis hotline posters are going to help.

#1: We need to stop talking about being excluded and bullied like it’s some trivial, temporary blip that kids just get over. We need to normalize talking about this in terms of life or death. Kids need to know that their actions, words, and behaviors can have significantly harmful impacts on other kids. And teachers need to understand that every time they look the other way, they are putting a child’s life in danger.

#2: Cultivate a restorative culture where acceptance and inclusion is second nature. In communities where relationships are prioritized, students really thrive. A sense of belonging is essential.

#3: highly visible affirming signals— posters, character representation in literature, accurate depictions of historical figures and other opportunities for mirrors and windows — like books!

#4: continuing to support groups like CARY who do a lot of the heavy lifting, help identify vulnerabilities and partner with the schools to find solutions.

11. HCPSS has a diverse student population with regard to race, ethnicity, country of origin, immigration status, socioeconomic status, disability, family structure, etc. What roles do you think these intersectional identities should play in the school system’s policies and practices in supporting LGBTQ+ students?

Intersectionality is complex and often overlooked. In some cultures there’s less acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community, if not outright hostility. Queer kids at that intersection will have different needs than queer kids from affirming and supportive families. More diversity and intersectional representation among staff would go a long way in affirming a variety of identities. Staff should be aware of the various ways that intersectionality shows up each day and how each piece of each kid is an essential part of their identity.

12. HCPSS has guidelines for gender inclusion (found in https://www.hcpss.org/f/supports/gender-inclusive-guidelines.pdf). Do you support these guidelines and would you vote in favor of a policy that codifies these guidelines? Please explain your answer.

Yes, it’s not just semantics — the difference is enormous. Right now you have teachers saying they don’t go out of their way to make their classrooms safe spaces because parents will complain. They say they can’t tell one kid not to deadname another kid because parents will complain. They have no confidence that someone will have their back. Policy would give the teachers assurances and make them less reliant on admin for cover. It also has the added benefit of making it easier to hold people accountable.

13. What are your views on training all staff on LGBTQ+ and other diversity related issues?

A certain amount of comprehensive LGBTQIA+ inclusiveness training should be mandatory for all staff, but I’d like to see HCPSS get more comfortable with requiring additional training for specific staff members who need it more than others. In work places all over the country it’s not unusual for employers to send individual staff members to extra training when they’ve demonstrated that they need it. Someone who has had multiple angry outbursts might be required to attend anger management. It shouldn’t be any different for staff members who demonstrate an unwillingness or inability to be inclusive of all students. This would be easier to implement if the gender inclusive guidelines were codified into policy.

14. How should the school system deal with requests for book removal? How do you prevent those requests from disproportionately affecting LGBTQ+ themed books?

I support the current protocol (Resource Reevaluation Committee) but the implementation has some major flaws that need to be addressed. RRC Membership should not be left up to a lottery. There’s too much at stake to literally roll the dice and hope for a representative sample of community members — at least not in full. The RRC should follow the same staffing model that every other review committee in HCPSS follows (standard invitations to stakeholder groups like CARY, HCEA, PTACHC, CAC, NAACP, AACRT, etc). And the committee should be properly chartered by the BOE instead of spawning from the policy 8040 implementation procedure.