No clarification from the Board or Dean Rose on their stance on whether high school interscholastic sports team participation should be determined by a student’s gender identity or biological gender.

After Mr. Rose stated on April 19 that he currently supports making no changes to the current policy that includes allowing sports participation by a student’s chosen gender and not biological sex, we twice asked Mr. Rose to clarify his position on that specific topic. Nancy Allen expanded that request for clarification from Mr. Rose to the entire board.

Earlier today, we sent our second request to Mr. Rose.

In the interest of transparency, I’m asking you to clarify for Frederick County residents where you stand on this issue. From your comments, it appears you will support the continuation of the current policy allowing participation on sports teams by the gender a student identifies with and not biological gender. Clarifying your position and rationale while waiting for more court cases to be decided or settled does nothing to lock you or FCPS into policy or create any legal risk, and parents and residents deserve to know what you believe is right. As I stated, it would also be consistent with your openness on similar issues with court cases pending in the past, and the amount of research and information on this topic is more than enough to settle on a stance. Thanks, and awaiting your response. 

On April 19, Mr. Rose stated that we should focus on more important things like gun safety at school, but our goal here is transparency, and the board’s position on sports participation is unclear. 

Gun violence is a risk at schools, and it is a critical issue that should be discussed. Still, Mr. Rose has not been pushing this in public in BOE meetings prior to this, nor has the board developed plans or recommendations to deal with the topic, at least none that were discussed in the April 19 meeting. His recent public suggestion that we focus there instead of on the sports policy sounds more like deflection than transparency. 

There are lots of issues worthy of discussion to protect our students, and since he brought it up, let’s have some transparency on the FCPS plans to deal with the protection of students from gun violence as well. We think the BOE should also clarify whether they have any plans to partner with law enforcement and public health officials to protect our students from the rapidly increasing risk of Fentanyl exposure through specially designed education programs outside of the Health curriculums. Let’s hear from the board on how we will improve our unsatisfactory academic proficiency and where they stand on the new Equitable Rating System programs that oversimplify testing to raise scores (and which is in place in many districts, including down the road in Arlington, Virginia).

These are all worthy of discussion, but let’s first finish having Mr. Rose and the board provide transparency into their position on sports participation before we move on to anything else.