A La Center School Board meeting on Tuesday, April 22, drew more than 100 attendees and 27 speakers who clashed over the district’s gender identity policy and its legal standoff with the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).
The policy, which directs school staff to notify parents if a student uses different pronouns at school, was ruled discriminatory by OSPI in February. The agency directed the district to rescind the policy and conduct staff training, citing violations of state law protecting gender-expansive students. The district has appealed.
One of the first to speak was La Center Mayor Tom Strobehn, who defended the district.
“The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction of the state of Washington has directly attacked the residents of our city,” Strobehn said. “They’re saying our board … are discriminating against our own children.”
After the meeting, Strobehn told The Reflector he wanted Superintendent Peter Rosenkranz to know the city supports him.
Rosenkranz has framed the issue as one of parental rights.
“People out here take pride in their children … and you shouldn’t get between that,” he said following the meeting.
Several speakers echoed that position.
“You realize that students belong to our parents, not to the school,” La Center City Councilmember Myrna Leija said regarding the school’s policy. “Let’s foster communication between children and their parents.”
Others pushed back.
“I was witness to the severe consequences of outing a child to well-intentioned yet misinformed parents,” Dee Stewart, president of PFLAG Vancouver, said. “In the worst cases, youth were severely beaten and it was not uncommon to kick a child out of their home. I, for one, was never able to repair the relationship with my parents.”
La Center resident Jeannette, who did not share her last name, described her own experience as a transgender woman. She criticized parents who spoke in favor of the school district during the event.
“I heard a lot of parents tonight and none of them mentioned how they (would) support their kid if they came out as trans,” she said. “I’m happy to be living a life where I can just exist … and not have someone threaten to chop it up just because I exist.”
Discussions continued following the school board meeting. Missy Fant, a board member with Clark County Pride, criticized Rosenkranz’s comments comparing state oversight to historical abuses in Native boarding schools on the podcast Rooted with James Oneil earlier that week.
“That comparison is not only inaccurate, it’s offensive,” she said. “We’re trying to stop abuse, not separate families.”
Rosenkranz defended his stance.
“What this feels like is the state is trying to take ownership of who's raising the children. They actually tried that with native families, go back 100 years and you look at tribal schools, how did that happen? Well, they didn't believe native families could raise children, so they ripped them out of native homes and put them in Indian schools, native schools, right?”
The U.S. Department of Education has initiated an investigation into OSPI, stemming from its conflict with La Center over the pronoun policy. The department claims OSPI may have violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Title IX and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.
