Sexual orientation and gender identity have been hot topics recently among Lethbridge parents. These discussions originated from new guidelines for school districts that were recently released by the Alberta government. The document titled: Guidelines for Best Practices: Creating Learning Environments that Respect Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Gender Expressions, brings attention to segregation among these groups. The intention of the document is to ensure that students are treated equally regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
The document brings attention to specific recommendations for school districts around Alberta and requires them to draft a new policy surrounding it. This has raised concern among many local parents. Primarily, the statements in the document regarding non-gender segregated change rooms and bathrooms.
Last Wednesday parents filled the School District 51 for the first revision of the draft. Most parents heard about the revision through social media and felt uninformed by their schools and unaware that a policy had been drafted. Cathy Lancaster, was a local parent at the meeting. “All of a sudden this just comes out, never before have I known that we could have a voice in this, then all of sudden it comes out on social media and catches a lot of attention,” she said. “I just think they’re trying to push something through really fast. How much are they going to listen to our voice? That I’m not so sure of.” Lancaster was a parent at the meeting who felt this way.
Garrett Simmons, Communications Officer for the district explains that this policy is only a draft. “The intention of the meeting was for groups of parents from each school parent council to get together and to provide written feedback on our draft policy,” he said.
The OUTreach Southern Alberta society is a Lethbridge organization that represents a voice for the LGBTQ community. Tiff Semach is on the OUTreach Board of Directors, and explains that there has been a lot of negative and misinformed dialogue surrounding the issue and how it will translate to school policies. “Not only does this create unnecessary confusion surrounding the guidelines, but it also creates hurtful, sometimes dangerous conversations that call into question the rights of trans and genderqueer students to be safe in their schools,” she said. For trans and genderqueer students, safe access to washroom facilities is an ongoing concern,” said Semach. A study by Egale Youth OUTreach in 2011 reported over half of trans students felt unsafe in washrooms and change rooms.
School District 51’s draft policy 502.1 is titled Welcoming, Caring, Respectful and Safe Learning Environments. Currently this draft does not address structures for washrooms and change rooms. School District 51 says that for now, a review for these recommendations has not yet started and there is no timeline for when these discussions will begin. The district assured parents that if these recommendations were explored in the future, a process would be in place to do so. Parents can stay informed and involved in future decisions by joining their parent council at their school.
Lethbridge School District 51 held a meeting on Jan. 20 to review the draft policy 502.1.
