As administrators move closer to hiring a consultant team to lead community focus groups on potential revisions to the school division’s policies for transgender students, some School Board members are questioning whether that is the best approach.
During last night’s Student Services Committee meeting, Kari LaBell (Catoctin) sought to rescind the committee’s February directive supporting the focus-group approach, instead recommending the committee take the lead by holding two public work sessions to revise the policy before the committee’s next meeting in May.
In February, committee member Melinda Mansfield’s (Dulles) suggested hiring an “objective” outside organization to lead focus groups to gather feedback to help with potential revisions to the policy. The panel supported that approach on a 2-1 vote, with LaBell in favor and Ann Donohue (At-Large) opposed.
The current policy, which was based on model policies from the Virginia Department of Education in 2021, allows students to use the bathroom or locker room and participate in sports or other activities according to their gender identity. It also allows students on a case-by-case basis to change their name and pronouns without consulting parents. VDOE revised the model polices in 2023, stating students are to use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their sex and not their gender identity. That rule also applies to sports and other activities.
The School Board, which took office in January with all nine seats held by new members, had been debating how to respond to the changing direction from state leaders. The committee voted in January to pick up where the previous board left off and continue the debate on whether to update the policy to reflect changes sought by the Youngkin Administration’s 2023 model policies.
“When we first considered this, when it was presented to us February 15, my understanding of focus groups was that it could be any size, it could target any population, and it could take a short time to an enormous amount of time. And I also understood there were a couple of companies that would provide this service for free,” LaBell said.
She said, because the proposed solution had grown so “enormously,” she could no longer support it. She said over the past three years the policy has been in place there has been ample discussion in board meetings, committee meetings, and via email from all groups of people that could be collected and used instead of forming focus groups.
“I feel that we are all well educated women, certainly capable. We have a lawyer, an educator, an activist—certainly we are capable to doing the work we were elected to do ourselves,” she said.
Donohue and Mansfield voted against reconsidering the plan.
Donohue said she had reservations about the focus group idea when it was first suggested because she didn’t have enough information on the process to hire an outside organization to run the groups and how it would help the committee collect information needed to consider revising the policy.
She said she was interested in having the procurement process go forward to learn what the vendors could offer the division.
Student Services Assistant Superintendent Tedra Richardson said the request for proposals had not yet been posted. Once quotes were submitted by vendors, an evaluation team consisting of five to six members including herself and others from the Student Services Department, a School Board representative, and a representative from the Department of Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, would be formed to evaluate, rank, and recommend a vendor to the School Board. She said the evaluation team would not consist of any parents, teachers, or students.
“I am very interested in learning from the vendors how they would envision focus groups working and how they would plan to obtain opinions and incites form individuals who are vested in the outcome of these discussions. I also think that whether or not we go forward with focus groups, I think there are other tasks that this committee can do to continue the work we are doing on this policy,” Donohue said.
Policy 8040 has been under fire since before its adoption in August 2021 and new critics, including from the Muslim community, have spoken out against it in recent months.
The next Student Services Committee meeting is May 16.
