Public comments at Tuesday’s Elida school board meeting remained divided over the district’s policy on transgender bathrooms and anti-discrimintation.
Photo by Mackenzi Klemann | The Lima News
ELIDA — Parents shouted over Elida schools officials Tuesday as the superintendent tried to assure the community that reports of male students using female restrooms are false.
Superintendent Joel Mengerink described the allegations as a “myth,” telling an audience of concerned parents, grandparents and LGBTQ supporters who attended Tuesday’s board meeting that there is no “open season in the restrooms.”
The district has investigated claims circulating on social media alleging male students are using female restrooms and staring at female students, but thus far all allegations investigated by the district have proved false, Mengerink said.
Tuesday’s raucus meeting marked the first time the Elida school board has met since residents rejected a renewal levy worth $369,000 per year amid frustrations the district is allowing trans and non-binary students to use the restroom that matches their gender identity.
“The community spoke in the last election,” resident John Solomon said. “There will be a higher price to pay if this doesn’t stop. … We’re here to protect the children.”
Audience members jeered as board member Jeff Christoff said the district has an anti-discrimination policy, rather than a restroom policy, which includes protections for trans and non-binary students.
The school district has maintained such adherence to federal policy in meetings previous to this one. The board has stated before meetings that anti-discrimination policies are tied to the federal funding the school district receives.
And when Christoff said that anyone who knowingly files a false report may be found in violation of the district’s anti-harassment policy, an audience member shouted: “You want to censor us.”
LGBTQ supporters who attended Tuesday’s meeting spoke of the need to support trans students, who are at greater risk of suicide and self harm.
“Our identities are not an attack on anyone else’s,” said Arienne Childrey, a St. Marys resident and trans woman who attended Tuesday’s meeting to support trans students in Elida, “but bigotry is most certainly an attack on our humanity.”
As reported in The Lima News, in a resolution passed unanimously at an April Elida school board meeting outlining the board’s position on the issue, the board stated it has a fiscal responsibility to the district not to put themselves in a position where they would face a lawsuit they would lose and calling on citizens to petition state and federal lawmakers to amend the law to prohibit transgender student access to restrooms that do not conform to their preferred identity.
