An APC parent alerted us to this recent post on the APS Engage Page:
APC wishes to state clearly and emphatically that no meeting has taken place between APC and the team who is writing this PIP.
The only meeting ever offered was an April 8 meeting with Deborah DeFranco and Pam McClellan (see chronology summary below), where APC parents were lied to about the PIP draft’s existence. Patrick Murphy has ignored/rebuffed every request for meetings with APC parents. School Board members have instructed APC parents repeatedly that the PIP is in development at the administration level, and therefore the school board has no involvement with it. APC parents have had to find out about advisory board meetings via third-party channels, and have attended without invitation, to try to get our voices heard.
On May 21, Tara Nattrass, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching & Learning, who is the team lead on this PIP, did return a call from one APC parent, and they spoke for 40 minutes. The content of that discussion is posted at the end of the chronological summary below.
If you’re just finding out about APS’ determination to slide transgender ideology and propaganda into your child’s entire school day (preferably without you knowing about it), you might benefit from a quick summary of what APC has been working on since we found out that APS can no longer be trusted to make evidence-based decisions for our children’s education.
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[Abbreviations are explained the first time they are used, and again in a short glossary at the end of this post.]
February 25: An Arlington Public Schools (APS) mom discovers the J-2 Transgender & Gender-Nonconforming Student Policy Implementation Procedure (PIP) timeline while looking for summer school information on the APS Engage Page. She and another parent attend that evening’s meeting of a school board working group and are very surprised by what they hear.
February 28: Ashlawn Elementary School co-opts National Read-a-Book Day to host a transgender activist who reads the transgender storybook I Am Jazz to two classes of kindergartners, without parent approval or opt-out offer.
March 2: A group of concerned parents meets and forms the Arlington Parent Coalition.
March 3: An Arlington Parent Coalition (APC) parent requests from Barbara Kanninen a copy of the “Arlington Gender Identity Allies (AGIA) Topics for Policy Implementation Procedures for Policy J-2,” which is listed on the APS Engage Page as a resource for the PIP.
March 4: Dr. Kanninen copies Tara Nattrass, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching & Learning, on the parent’s request.
March 4 & 10: Tara Nattrass puts off the APC parent twice, promising delivery of the AGIA proposal document after first one then another staff meeting.
March 12: The APC parent again contacts Dr. Kanninen about the AGIA proposal document, and asks that she please instruct Dr. Nattrass to release the document.
March 13: APC receives the AGIA proposal document, which contains very specific language about parents being kept from knowledge about their children’s mental and physical health, and from having the authority to make decisions about their children’s health and education. Most troubling, the policy appears to have been boiler-plated from GLSEN’s (Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network) Transgender Model District Policy. This handbook lists only three references as research support: two are surveys and one is a collection of anecdotes. One of the surveys and the anecdote collection originated with GLSEN itself. None of these constitute research or data in any defensible form.
Month of March: APC parents attend every session of the APS School Board’s open office hours, to address concerns about violations of parents’ rights and girls’ protections inherent in this PIP. At the Syphax Administration Center APC regularly encounters Robert Rigby, Jr., an AGIA consultant and a Fairfax County teacher and LGBTQ advocate who runs Fairfax PRIDE, and who is aggressively promoting transgender agendas in multiple school districts in the northern Virginia region.
April 7: The Washington Post publishes an op-ed about APS’ transgender agenda written by APC parent Maria Keffler.
April 8: Five APC parents meet with Deborah DeFranco, APS Supervisor of Health, Physical, & Driver Education; and Pam McClellan, APS Supervisor of Counseling. Ms. DeFranco and Ms. McClellan claim to be unaware of the AGIA proposal document or where it came from. They claim that nothing has yet been written for the APS J-2 PIP. Ms. DeFranco asserts that despite knowing very little about transgender issues she has been deemed the APS expert on the subject. The APC parents leave with Ms. DeFranco and Ms. McClellan a packet of robust research and data that refute AGIA’s lightly and inadequately cited policy wish-list.
April 8: An APC parent submits to APS a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request for “anything related to the APS School Board Policy J-2 PIP on Transgender & Gender Nonconforming Students that's being developed with a completion target date of June 2019. This includes any proposals submitted, research and background that's being considered, and any working documents related to this PIP.”
April 11: At a School Board Meeting Yorktown teacher Deborah Waldron thanks the school board for the J-2 PIP (1:43:09) She says, “I’ve read the policy. It’s amazing.” Later that evening the APC parent receives the PIP policy draft in response to the April 8 FOIA request.
April 23: An APC parent submits a second FOIA request for communication about the J-2 PIP between APS and any outside entities, specifically AGIA (the Arlington Gender Identity Allies). This request yields a 30-page email record, indicating that APS has been working exclusively with AGIA on this subject since September 2018. Emails in this exchange reveal that AGIA’s Elizabeth found Keffler’s op-ed to contain “factual inaccuracies and misleading statements,” a phrase that Tara Nattrass later used in communication with APC.
Ms. Keffler, an APC parent and author of the Washington Post op-ed, directly contacts both AGIA and Dr. Nattrass to clarify what they found inaccurate or misleading. As of this writing (May 24, 2019) no response has been made to Ms. Keffler by either party.
Month of April: APC parents pursue meetings with Tara Nattrass and with Patrick Murphy, APS Superintendent. No meetings are ever scheduled. APC continues to investigate how and when community input will be collected for this PIP, as is indicated in the timeline will happen in April and May.
Month of May: APC parent groups from individual APS schools start to form and meet, linking up strategies to push back on APS’ unconscionable and aggressive push to make transgender topics a part of every aspect of school life. Parents share stories of where their children/families have been wounded by the school’s activism on these sensitive topics.
May 15: Six APC parents attend the School Health Advisory Board meeting, one of the committees which read and commented on the J-2 PIP. Dr. Nattrass left the meeting early, before APC parents were able to raise a discussion about the PIP. Laura Newton, Director of Administrative Staff, fielded APC parents’ questions, but did not seem well-acquainted with the specifics of the PIP. When pressed about when and how community input will be taken, she explained that when the PIP draft is posted on the Engage Page there will be comment boxes with it. When asked who will read these online comments and how they will be quantified, no practical answer was provided. Ms. Newton indicated that the process for community input may not be as effective as it should.
May 16: APS changes the last line in its J-2 PIP timeline from PIP implementation in 2019-20, to “Development of Policy: TBD 2021.” At first glance this seems a positive move, to back up the target date for two years. However, given the communication between APS and AGIA, and their assertion that this PIP represents the first step in the development of a more comprehensive policy (see FOIA [page 21, dated February 22, 2019]), it seems clear that APS is merely setting into place the next stage of this ill-founded plan, to create a school-board sanctioned policy that reflects what is already being created in the schools by this slightly less ironclad PIP.
May 17: APC parents alert APC that their letters to the superintendent, Dr. Murphy, are being responded to via a form letter that indicates they should address their concerns in the comment box when the J-2 PIP is uploaded to the Engage Page.
May 21: An APC parent alerts APC to the above update (first image above) on the APS Engage Page. Tara Nattrass returns a phone message from an APC parent, and they have a conversation about the J-2 PIP. The following items were discussed:
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If you have any questions about what you’ve read above, about the J-2 Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Student PIP, or about APS’ utter disregard for parents, their concerns, and their authority over their own children, please contact APC. We will be happy to connect you with other parents in your school(s) who are likewise on the spectrum between concerned and outraged, and to assist you in getting your voice heard and your authority respected.
Abbreviations Glossary:
AGIA – Arlington Gender Identity Allies (Special interest group that is driving the J-2 PIP)
APC – Arlington Parent Coalition (Parents who are concerned about the J-2 PIP’s implications)
APS – Arlington Public Schools
FOIA – Freedom of Information Act
GLSEN – Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network
HRCF – Human Rights Campaign Foundation (LGBT policy & funding organization)
PIP – Policy Implementation Procedure