I shared with a few friends last year my concern about gender pronoun changes in school board policy, and I would like to share it here, as the same issue has resurfaced, and, indeed, will now be considered in the MSBA’s proposed policy changes for school boards in our state:
I was just at a meeting this week where several community members expressed concern about these gender pronoun changes creeping into schools, starting with school board policy. Turns out that was no unwarranted concern!
It would be interesting to know if GLSEN is one of the partners at the Missouri Education Roundtable exposed in this article at the OPSWindow. The Target-GLSEN news article above seems to imply that GLSEN has a seat at some table developing school board policy. [One look at this national organization’s website will give a tip about where!]
This idea/approach of the purpose of the pronoun changes needs to be made widely known – and that same tactic of pronoun changes can be seen in some board policy changes being suggested by the MSBA.
Let me suggest a course of action IF you are concerned about the the board policy changes and/or the curriculum :
2) if those policies are/were slated for adoption, politely and respectfully make contact with your board members expressing your thoughts about your school district affirming in policy the idea that gender can be fluid, that some students are “non-binary”, i.e., won’t fit into one of the two categories of “male” or “female”. If you made that contact by phone, follow up that contact in writing. Then follow up that contact with your presence at the next board meeting. Strongly consider speaking at the board meeting (find out in advance what is required to be able to do that — one of the requirements may be that you first expressed your concern in writing — and what are the limits on your speech there (time, etc.))
1) check your school’s website to see if the board’s minutes/agendas show that it has adopted any policy changes last month or is slated to adopt some this month (some have to be done by July in order to abide by state law, and these might be included in that bunch.) It’s worth skimming all of them, but the ones with pronoun changes which have been noticed so far are Policies labeled JFGA, JHDA, DJFA (the labels will likely the same since they’re usually the same policies throughout Missouri schools, as the MSBA suggests them to boards state-wide.)
3) make contact (email message or a phone call followed/documented by email) with the curriculum director at your school (usually available on the school’s website) to politely express your concerns and ask which curriculum is used in your school
Let me also personally validate the Target-GLSEN article’s third paragraph’s point: I was a public high school math teacher, and even since the late 90’s-early 2000’s, math teachers often observed how obviously — and effectively – word problems in math curriculum are used to normalize whatever agenda is popular at the time. Now it’s being openly admitted (here is just one of many sites where that approach is employed): https://www.foxnews.com/media/missouri-school-district-putting-they/them-pronouns-in-math-class-to-help-kids-mathematical-identities
*As always, I speak only for myself and do not intend to represent the Board to you in any way in what I say or write.I do, however, fully and firmly intend to represent YOU to the Board!
