September 22, 2023 – For the second CUSD Board Meeting in a row, multiple members of the Clovis public, Clovis parents, and concerned citizens across the Valley made their way to the public comments section portion of the Clovis Unified School Board Meeting in order to discuss an on-going issue across California.
Those who spoke at last week’s meeting and a good portion of those who spoke at this meeting were mainly concerned with students’ gender identity throughout CUSD, and whether or not their gender identity upon change would be notified to parents.
This issue comes after a judge halted school policy for Chino Valley Unified School District that would notify parents of students’ gender identity change.
This is not the first time CUSD has seen public participation on the topic, as the issue came up during two week’s ago’s board meeting when a smaller group of concerned individuals spoke in front of the board.
Clovis Unified released a statement directly to the Clovis Roundup after this first meeting:
“Our existing practices in Clovis Unified are centered on balancing the rights of students to access facilities and programs based on their identified gender and the rights held by parents and guardians in the upbringing of their children, and we look at every child individually. No further steps have been taken by the Governing Board or administration at this time to place a board policy like that currently being legally challenged in other parts of the state on a future meeting agenda.”
Members of the public at this meeting made arguments for both sides of the topic, either supporting or opposing a possible policy change within CUSD.
“It should be a student’s own choice. It should be their option to choose when and who and how they come out to,” said Nadine Pourier Blumenshine, the vice president of PFLAG. PFLAG is the organization “Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays”.
On the other hand, parents who want to be notified stated that they “have a right to know” what is going on in schools with their children, and that they hope to be “involved” in every portion of their children’s education both on and off campus.
Clovis Unified released a similar statement to ABC 30 while adding an additional two sentences to the previous statement made to the Clovis Roundup two weeks prior.
“Our existing practices in Clovis Unified are centered on balancing the rights of students to access facilities and programs based on their gender identity and the rights held by parents and guardians in the upbringing of their children. We look at every child individually to make sure they are supported and safe at school. And, we look for ways to ensure that no parent is left without access to their child’s student records and educational experience.”
Clovis Unified has not made a decision on whether or not they will put a policy in their school district notifying parents of gender identity change and will not for the foreseeable future.
This will not occur so long as the Chino Valley Unified School District’s policy is currently being challenged.