ABOVE: Flagler County School Board during its Dec. 15 meeting. (Screenshot from FlaglerSchools.com)
After a 13-month battle, LGBTQ activists in Flagler County are ending 2020 with a huge victory for transgender students.
In a 3-2 vote, the Flagler County School Board added gender identity to the policy manual’s section 217, the district’s nondiscrimination policy, Dec. 15.
The fight to update the district’s nondiscrimination policy began in the fall of 2019 when Elliott Bertrand, a transgender high school student in Palm Coast, had to change high schools because of a teacher’s bullying behavior that Bertrand saw as transphobic.
Bertrand’s parents went to the November 2019 school board meeting asking for gender identity to be added to the district’s nondiscrimination policy, and continued attending meetings demanding action.
In April, the board voted 4-1 to keep the district’s nondiscrimination policy as is without the addition of gender identity. Board member Colleen Conklin was the only person to vote for the change.
Since that vote the board has had some changes, with Maria Barbosa and Andy Dance no longer serving on the board. New board member Cheryl Massaro and returning Trevor Tucker, who is now the board chair, joined Conklin in voting yes in Tuesday’s vote. Jill Woolbright, the board’s other new member, and Janet McDonald voted for no changes.
“This is not a political issue. This is not a religious issue. This is a human issue — human rights,” Massaro said during the meeting. “We have students that aren’t feeling they’ve been treated correctly, and we need to do the right thing and clarify what’s there.”
You can watch the Flagler County School Board’s full Dec. 15 meeting here.
