Is Your Kid Trans? Don’t Expect the School to Tell You

by Kerry Dougherty

In case you’re wondering how Glenn Youngkin came to be elected in Virginia perhaps it’s because the Northam regime ensured that you could drop your son off at school where he could duck into the girls’ room, slap on lipstick and demand everyone address him as “She/Her.”

And you’d be the last to know.

That’s right. Parents aren’t automatically notified if their kid is trans in Virginia thanks to the nutty wokesters in the last administration.

Get a load of these:

These were slides were sent to me by several sources over the weekend. They were shown to faculty at a Virginia Beach high school, I was told.

“Which one?” I asked.

The answer came, “Princess Anne.”

To verify, I did what reporters have always done. On Monday I phoned the Virginia Beach Schools’ Department of Media and Communications.

“Can you confirm that these slides were part of a presentation to the faculty at Princess Anne High School?” I asked. “And is this the policy of VBPS?”

The spokeswoman asked me to email the images and said she’d get back to me. Late in the day, another member of the staff emailed to say they needed more time.

They were stalling.

On Tuesday, I received this:

Ms. Dougherty,

This email is to acknowledge your Freedom of Information Act request received by Virginia Beach City Public Schools Monday January 31, 2021.

Your specific request includes:

Were these two slides presented to faculty at Princess Anne High School?

Is it VBPS policy to allow students to use a gender other than the one they were born with without their parents’ knowledge?

The Division has 5 business days to send your responsive records. As authorized by Virginia Code § 2.2-3705.1(F), the Division may assess charges for the cost of staff time to search for and produce responsive records. Those charges are based on the hourly rate provided by the Department of Human Resources.

You may expect to receive your documents on or before February 7, 2022

Respectfully,

John F Sutton III, M.Ed.
Coordinator of Policy and Intergovernmental Affairs
Virginia Beach City Public Schools

They bought themselves five more days. Best of all, they plan to bilk me for doing their jobs. Good luck with that.

I didn’t file a FOIA request and I didn’t ask for records. And they know it. These factotums are treating a routine media inquiry as a Freedom of Information action.

It’s a game with these people. I asked them to answer two simple questions. These imperious “public servants” plan to take nearly a week to provide an answer.

I’m an impatient person. So I did a workaround.

I phoned School Board member Vicky Manning, who confirmed that the slides were shown at a Princess Anne High School faculty meeting. She shared an email exchange between herself and school staff.

In her initial email she didn’t know which high school was involved. In a follow-up Manning told the staff she’d confirmed that it was Princess Anne High School.

From: Victoria C. Manning <Victoria.Manning@VBCPSBoard.com>
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2022 7:44 AM
To: Aaron C. Spence <Aaron.Spence@vbschools.com>; Donald E. Robertson Jr <Donald.Robertson@VBSchools.com>; Eugene Soltner <Eugene.Soltner@VBSchools.com>; Matthew Delaney <Matthew.Delaney@VBSchools.com>
Subject: high school faculty meeting

A parent/friend of mine shared the attached slides with me. She received it from a teacher who is afraid to share with administration. These slides were used in a faculty meeting in a Virginia Beach High School earlier this month. I’m trying to find out which high school.

I’m very concerned that it seems teachers are being told that it is ok to keep things from parents. It states (with or without parental knowledge). As I read the transgender regulations, it seems that any pronoun change would need to be received in writing from a parent of a minor student or in writing from a student that is not a minor. Is that accurate?

If I find out which high school, I will let you know.

Victoria Manning

School Board At-Large, City of Virginia Beach

This was the response Manning received from school staff:

From: Donald E. Robertson Jr <Donald.Robertson@VBSchools.com>

Sent: Monday, January 31, 2022 2:43 PM

To: Victoria C. Manning <Victoria.Manning@VBCPSBoard.com>; Aaron C. Spence <Aaron.Spence@vbschools.com>; Eugene Soltner <Eugene.Soltner@VBSchools.com>; Matthew Delaney <Matthew.Delaney@VBSchools.com>

Subject: RE: high school faculty meeting

Mrs. Manning,

The content of these slides align to Regulation 5-7.1, enacted as a result of new federal and state legislation as well as model policies from the VDOE. Under regulation 5-7.1B.2, we provide direction about parent involvement and believe this provides more active language to include parents as compared to language on pp 11-12 of the model policies. In terms of the term “nonbinary’ I direct you to the VDOE Model Policies on page 6.

Donald E. Robertson, Jr. PhD

Chief of Staff

Virginia Beach City Public Schools

If you cut through the jargon and gibberish you realize that Donald E. Robertson seems to be saying that it is indeed the policy of Virginia Beach public schools to allow children to switch gender without informing parents. He claims it is part of a directive from the Virginia Department of Education.

This is an anti-family regulation and one more example of the left attempting to drive a wedge between parents and children. So-called progressives believe the government knows what’s best for children. Parents, with their pesky morality, rules and religion, just get in the way.

Manning — part of the pro-family coalition on the school board — is incensed.

A child in Virginia Beach cannot go on a field trip across the street from their school without parental permission but they can decide to assume a new name or gender without parental knowledge,” she said. “I believe this is a pure violation of the Natural Rights of parents that are also spelled out in Virginia Code: § 1-240.1. Rights of parents. A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child.

There are legal challenges on this topic across the state. I hope parents in Virginia Beach will step up and challenge this in court also!

Preach, sister.

Consider this: Virginia Beach requires parental permission for students to come to class without a mask.

But if your son wants to use the girl’s locker room and prance around in a bra, that’s between him and the principal.

The General Assembly needs to fix this slice of insanity.

Now.

This column has been republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.