This School Board Policy Codifies Lying to Parents

The Gilford School Board recognizes a student’s right to keep private one’s transgender status or gender non-conforming presentation at school. Information about a student’s transgender status, legal name, or gender assigned at birth also may constitute confidential information. School personnel should not disclose information that may reveal a student’s transgender status or gender non-conforming presentation to others, including parents and other school personnel, unless legally required to do so or unless the student or parent has authorized such disclosure. 

Transgender and gender non-conforming students have the right to discuss and express their gender identity and expression openly and to decide when, with whom, and how much to share private information. When contacting the parent or guardian of a transgender or gender non-conforming student, school personnel should use the student’s legal name and the pronoun corresponding to the student’s gender assigned at birth unless the student, parent, or guardian has specified otherwise. 

In essence, the Board has declared that a student has a new Right – even if they are a minor child.

In addition, the Board has unilaterally decided to abrogate a well regarded Right that has been held to be Constitutional: the Right for Parents to raise their children in THEIR manner with their mores and norms. Thus, under RSA 91:A, I am demanding:

• To review any and all communications between any Board members, Professional SAU 73 Staff members, any Advocacy Groups, the NHSBA or any others that have had any indirect or direct impacts / assistanceon the construction of the above section, including emails, letters, voicemails (but not to exclude other formats as necessary).
• For the District to provide any and all responsive documents / NH RSAs that show that the District has the Power to grant a minor child the new Right to Privacy as described above (to hide their transgender / gender dysphoria status from their Parents). In essence, the Board has decided to abrogate the Constitutionally Right that protects the Right of Parents (1923, Meyer v. Nebraska, and 2000, Troxel v. Granville)  to raise their children as they believe correct for their offspring.  In this, the Board has decided that IT has priority over Parents such responsibility beyond that of the standard “in loco parentis” doctrine (whose purpose was designed mostly for emergency situations)
• Included in this demand is for the District to show, because we are a Dillon’s Right State (versus home rule), which NH RSAs provide the District the Power to deceive Parents especially in lying to Parents, either by commission or omission, in order to hide the transgender status of Parent’s child.

This RSA 91:A demand also concerns another section of the SAU 73 Policy JBAB, Section B Official Records:

The District is required to maintain a mandatory permanent pupil record (“official record”) that includes a student’s legal name and legal gender. However, the District is not required to use a student’s legal name and gender on other school records or documents. The District will change a student’s official record to reflect a change in legal name or legal gender upon receipt of documentation that such change has been made pursuant to a court order. In situations where school staff or administrators are required by law to use or to report a transgender student’s legal name or gender, such as for purposes of standardized testing, school staff and administrators shall adopt practices to avoid the inadvertent disclosure of such confidential information. 

In essence, the District has unilaterally decided to circumvent the Federal Law known as FERPA, 34 CFR Part 99, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of which also codifies the right of Parents to obtain any and all written records concerning their child. By essentially keeping “double books” (one for formal records demands via RSA 91:A and FERPA demands and “oral” (or “off books”records for internal use), the District has decided affirmatively to mislead Parents by another avenue.

Thus, this RSA 91:A is also demanding:

• To review any and all communications between any Board members, Professional SAU 73 Staff members, any Advocacy Groups, or any others that have had any indirect or direct impacts / assistanceon the construction of the above section, including emails, letters, voicemails (but not to exclude other formats as necessary)
• To review any and all communications between any Board members, Professional SAU 73 Staff members, any Advocacy Groups, or any others that have had any indirect or direct impacts / assistance on the pros, cons, and eventual acceptance of this process of circumventing both Parental Rights and avoiding FERPA philosophy that Parents have primacy and can demand ALL information about their children.
• For the District to provide any and all responsive documents / NH RSAs that show that the District has the Power to obviate itself from such RSA 91:A and FERPA demands.

Please know that it seems that this NHSBA model Policy has spread across the nation – and has come under litigation across as outlined in this Daily Signal article (https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/03/24/school-districts-are-hiding-information-about-gender-transitioning-children-from-their-parents-this-is-unconstitutional/?)

The relevant sections:

…In response, two families have sued the Montgomery County Board of Education. The suit aims to enforce their rights to access information about their children’s gender identity, which is generated and retained by Montgomery County schools pursuant to a 2019 policy.

This policy enables Montgomery County Board of Education personnel to evaluate minors about sexual matters, allows minors of any age to transition socially to a different gender identity at school without parental notice or consent, and requires personnel to facilitate the transition with the use of the child’s “preferred pronouns.”

…Stunningly, the policy prohibits personnel from communicating with parents on any of the above actions, and goes so far as to direct teachers and staff to deceive parents by reverting to a child’s birth name and corresponding pronouns whenever a child’s parents are present. According to court filings, the Montgomery County Board of Education claims it is acting in the best interests of the minors involved by protecting them from the “unsupportive” parents of those children.

In its motion to dismiss, the Montgomery County Board of Education represented that disclosure to parents who are “not supportive … might expose the student to harm” and that “gender nonconforming students face significant dangers of abuse at home from unsupportive families.”

…By cloaking critically important information about one’s child under the guise that unsupportive parents are “dangerous” to their children, schools are given license to effectively label “gender critical” parents as abusive without the benefit of due process protections.

Under some cock-eyed theory of “harm at home,” the Montgomery County Board of Education substitutes schools for parents, and deprives all parents in the county school system of their fundamental right to vital information based on nothing but a hunch.

There are other suits as well.

If you deny any or all of this request, please cite each specific exemption you feel justifies the refusal to release the information and notify me of the appeal process available to me under the Law. A response is expected, per the Law, within five business days.

One last aside: one’s gender is NOT “assigned at birth” – there is no bespectacled green-rimmed visor wearing clerk with a checklist in hand in the delivery room. Gender is determined (not assigned) at conception and not assigned at birth. Your science department staff should be able to school you on the differences.

-Skip