Community group petitions Rochester Public Schools for more involvement regarding transgender policies

Jordan Shearer, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·2 min read

May 21—ROCHESTER — Becoming the latest development in an ongoing controversy over Rochester Public Schools' guidelines regarding transgender students, a group has petitioned the district to include more community members in the process moving forward.

The group submitted the petition to the School Board on Tuesday, May 21. A statement about the petition was read by Dan Sepeda.

"It calls for the involvement of parents and community members in the development and approval of policies and procedures which affect the moral and spiritual environment in our schools," Sepeda read from the statement.

It was not immediately clear how many signatures the petition included, since the various copies of the petition handed out to the school board members didn't include a unified list of names, according to Board Chairwoman Cathy Nathan. Sepeda said the names on the various copies represented roughly a third of those the group had accumulated.

Rochester Public Schools first implemented its "guidelines for supporting transgender and gender-expansive students" in 2023. The document has continued to be a lightning rod when it was brought to the public's attention in March 2024 by a national parental advocacy group.

Earlier this month, Nathan indicated the school board would begin developing the district's guidelines into procedures. Sepeda said the signers of the petition find that decision concerning.

"The school board seems to be well into the process of doubling down by turning these guidelines into procedures without adequate input from those whom the procedures will affect," Sepeda said Tuesday. "Catering to limited viewpoints in such a process is a mistake. Rushing the development of something this sensitive is a mistake."

The petition comes two weeks after the district's teachers union expelled a school counselor for mischaracterizing the district's guidelines and spreading "misinformation about transgender youth." According to Rochester Education Association President Vince Wagner, it was the first time in decades that a member has been expelled from the union.

The counselor, Christina Barton, has repeatedly criticized the guidelines because they don't require schools to proactively inform parents if their child is expressing themselves in gender-nonconforming ways.

That criticism is also a central element of the petition the community group submitted Tuesday.

"The guidelines empower school staff to keep concerning information such as gender dysphoria or gender transitioning activity from parents unless a parent asks," the petition reads, in part. "Parents are unlikely to ask if they do not know their child is experiencing such things. Parents have both a responsibility and a right to know things such as this. Failing to inform the parents is a breach of trust and a failure to respectfully engage with parents on serious issues."