121 People Register to Speak at Loudoun County School Board Meeting
Virginia | June 10, 2021
The public comment period at Tuesday’s Loudoun County Public School (LCPS) Board meeting lasted about three hours after 121 people registered to speak. Several factors contributed to the high participation, according to LCPS citizen reporter Julie Sisson.
“It was insane,” Sisson said. “A combination of the first in-person audience in over a year, the fact that LCPS suspended Tanner Cross after the last one and the court ruling in his favor had come out earlier that day, last meeting of the school year, and the SB was supposed to discuss Policy 8040 (rights of transgender students) but they pushed it back to Committee.”
LCPS has become the focus of conservative activism over equity initiatives, fears of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and a draft policy for how the district will handle transgender students. In a previous public hearing, Cross said he would not use students’ preferred pronouns, leading to his suspension. Sisson said some people, mostly in favor, spoke about the transgender policy, but most of the comments were about Tanner Cross, constitutional rights, and equity initiatives.
LCPS River Bend Middle School 7th Grade Dean Melissa Dober said in the public comment period, “I am here to stand with Tanner Cross in defense of his first amendment rights. Like Tanner, when staff members are hired we do not surrender our rights under conditions of employment.”
She continued, “In the culturally responsive framework, equity training, and Policy 8040, it states we are to affirm students struggling with gender identity. This goes against my first amendment rights since it is against the truth of what I believe as a Christian and as a former science teacher. ”..
(Excerpts from The Virginia Star)