The Rocklin Unified School District, located 150 miles northeast of Palo Alto High School, is sparking both student and teacher backlash after it approved a policy mandating parental notification if their student requests to be identified by a different gender earlier this month.
The policy, which the board members voted in favor of 4-1 on Sept. 7, requires teachers and school staff to notify parents/guardians within three days if their child requests to be identified by a gender different from their biological sex, use bathrooms that don’t align with their gender, or go by a name that differs from their legal name.
Proponents see this policy as upholding parents’ natural rights, arguing that it would help cultivate transparent and healthy communication in families. However, critics believe this policy may risk the safety and privacy of transgender students as many of them feel afraid of potential backlash in the home.
According to Isabella Tomasini, an editor-in-chief of the Whitney Update, a student-run news publication at Whitney High School, there has been a lot of public backlash throughout her district.
“We’ve had a number of student protestors at our school walking around with signs,” Tomasini told Verde. “The public comment from our GSAs [Genders & Sexualities Alliances] and other allied groups has been very public. … It’s been so incredibly apparent that people are upset and I think it’s completely justified.”
Tomasini said there is still a long road ahead for the policy, and it most likely won’t ever go into effect.
“If any changes happen regarding the policies that teachers are held accountable for, they have to negotiate with our union, the RTPA [Rocklin Teachers Professional Association], which could take a couple of years” Tomasini said. “It probably won’t get far enough to even be implemented.”
According to Ariel Hong, a recent Paly graduate who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, the policy is intruding outside of the school’s jurisdiction.
“I have never heard of a policy that a school adopts with the purpose of fostering some kind of intervention within the home,” Hong said. “Most of the time, that’s something between the parent and the kid unless it interferes with the kid’s learning, which in this case should not impact whether or not they can learn. Even if the school has good intentions, it won’t necessarily improve communication within the home.”
Hong said the policy most likely won’t have any effects on Paly students.
“I highly doubt it’ll have any impact on Paly students, especially given the social climate of our area,” Hong said. “I don’t think there are enough people who won’t see through that [the board’s reasoning] for something like this policy to ever happen in our school district, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t impact other school districts.”