Boards drop trans policies

By EMMA ROTH-WELLS

Valley News Staff Writer

HAVERHILL — Amid fears of losing federal funding, a few school boards in northern Grafton County axed their anti-discrimination policies pertaining to transgender and gender-nonconforming students.

The school boards overseeing schools in Haverhill, Bath and Warren, N.H. recently voted separately to remove the anti-discrimination policy and procedure for transgender and gender-nonconforming students from their policy books.

The stricken text, originally adopted in 2017, ensured students would be called by their preferred names and pronouns, and allowed to use the school bathrooms and locker rooms that matched their gender identities.

Changing the way transgender and gender- nonconforming students are treated at school is “not the intent” of the policy change, Superintendent Dolores Fox said.

“Our job is to make sure students get what they need to be successful,” Fox said in a phone interview Wednesday. “This is simply to secure federal funding.”

The schools “will always support all of (their) students” and continue to follow New Hampshire’s anti-discrimination laws, Fox said, which as of 2018, include protections for gender identity.

The decision to rescind the policies was prompted by the New Hampshire School Board Association’s recommendation to schools earlier this year that they seek legal counsel on their policies addressing transgender students, Fox said.

In February, the association did advise schools to examine their policies regarding transgender athletes, but did not mention policies regarding transgender students more broadly. However, in 2022, the association removed an optional sample policy, created in 2015, regarding transgender and gen-

SCHOOL S A7 “Our job is to make sure students get what they need to be successful. This is simply to secure federal funding.”

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der-nonconforming students from its sample policy database. The removal was because of “a myriad of issues concerning transgender protections in public schools currently being litigated in New Hampshire and throughout the country,” according to the Spring 2022 Policy Update document.

School leaders across the country have struggled to keep up with the evolving laws targeting the rights of transgender Americans.

On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government.” The order asserts gender is tied to biological sex, there are only two genders and all federal agencies should “end the Federal funding of gender ideology.”

An additional Trump executive order issued in February warns federal funding will be withheld from schools that allow transgender women and girls to play on female sports teams.

The New Hampshire Department of Education seemed to support the Trump administration’s initiatives, but backtracked earlier this week.

Each year, the state’s education department sends out its “General Assurances”, a document schools must sign in order to get federal funding. The 2026 General Assurances originally called on schools to follow anti-transgender and anti-diversity, equity and inclusion executive orders, but on May 20, the department sent out a revised document excluding that language.

The department did not respond to the Valley News’ inquiry about the changes.

Vermont agencies have also been swept up in the confusion, but so far, have decided to keep policies protecting trans students and athletes on the books. In February, the Vermont School Boards Association rescinded its recommended model policy outlining anti-discrimination measures for trans and gender-nonconforming students and then quickly reinstated it after receiving pushback from civil rights and LGBTQ groups in the state including the Vermont Human Rights Commission.

Also in February, the Vermont Agency of Education sent an email to school leaders ensuring that “protections for LGBTQIA+ students are enshrined in Vermont law and have not been diminished in any way by this federal action.”

Other New Hampshire school districts in the Upper Valley have handled the culture war on transgender and gender-nonconforming students in different ways.

In March, the Claremont school board voted 3-2 to keep its policy in place until revisions could be made.

On Wednesday, the board adopted a revised policy. Changes include removing a section stating students have a right to be referred to by the name and pronouns that align with their gender identity.

The language regarding a transgender student’s right to play on the sports team corresponding with their gender identity was also struck since New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association “has its own rules,” Arlene Hawkins, chairwoman of the Claremont school board policy subcommittee, said in a phone interview Thursday.

The New Hampshire Inter-scholastic Athletic Association has advised districts to comply with Trump’s ban of trans girls on girls’ sports teams.

“We revised it so we’d be in compliance with New Hampshire law,” Hawkins said.

But the board that oversees schools in Hanover and Norwich, SAU 70, isn’t following along.

“It’s been mentioned in terms of the political climate but the board does not have any need or desire to change our policy at this time,” Ben Keeney, chair of the SAU 70 policy committee, said in a phone interview.

Emma Roth-Wells can be reached at erothwells@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.