by Reagan Reese, The Daily Caller:
- Bloomfield Hills School District in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, plans to observe Transgender Awareness Week, as it is listed on their district observation calendar.
- The grassroots organization Great Schools Initiative is raising concerns over the observance week saying it was not approved by the correct advisory board, according to state law.
- “Parents need to be able to have a choice to either opt into that or opt out of that. It shouldn’t be something that should be forced on people,” Great Schools Initiative spokesperson and Director of Strategic Partnerships Monica Yatooma told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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A grassroots initiative is sounding the alarm on a Michigan school district that plans to host a transgender awareness week in November.
Bloomfield Hills School District in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, will observe “Transgender Awareness Week,” a time meant for advocacy regarding discrimination and prejudice against the transgender community, according to the school district observation calendar. Great Schools Initiative, a Michigan-based parental rights in education group, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the group is considering legal action against the school district, which they believe broke the law by implementing the week. (RELATED: ‘Keep Your Politics Off My Identity’: Here’s What We Saw At Virginia Student Walkouts Over Youngkin’s Trans Policy)
“I want to emphasize that this is not about transgender individuals, we are inclusive of all people,” Great Schools Initiative spokesperson and Director of Strategic Partnerships Monica Yatooma told the DCNF. “But this is more about the topic, or the discussion, around sexuality and gender identity. Parents need to be able to have a choice to either opt into that or opt out of that. It shouldn’t be something that should be forced on people.”
Michigan law requires a Sex Education Advisory Board (SEAB) to approve every sexual education curriculum including materials, resources, program goals and objectives. The board supervisor must be either a physician, nurse or educator and the board must include parents, pupils, educators, local clergy and community health professionals.
The school district, however, allegedly did not advise the SEAB when approving the Transgender Awareness Week, Yatooma told the DCNF. Instead, the superintendent allegedly approved the week as a district observance week, which Yatooma says violates the law.
“We reached out to their school board and to their school board president,” Yatooma told the DCNF. “What he said to us was that observance calendars and the district calendar don’t go through the board. That’s something specifically done within the school district in the schools. When we asked who does it go through, we were told that it goes to the superintendent for approval. Our issue with that is that they are breaking the law by having a transgender awareness week because it’s not like ‘Holocaust Awareness Week’ or ‘Detroit Rugby Fans Awareness Week.’ When you’re doing a Transgender Awareness Week, you’re discussing topics like sexuality, gender identity and sexuality topics in general. Anytime you discuss this topic, gender identity, gender, sexuality, it needs to go through the SEAB board.”
