LGBTQ Advocates Want School Policy Change

Members of the LGBTQ community want the Osseo Area School District to do more to support the needs of transgender students.

At Tuesday night’s Osseo School Board Meeting, a group urged board members to develop a gender inclusion policy.

“We are asking you to consider a policy which would affirm students’ requested pronouns, bathrooms, and activities with which they identify,” said Tamara Grady, the mother of a transgender student.

Response to Viral Video

This call to action was organized in response to a video that went viral on social media last November, where a transgender student claimed that staff members at Osseo Senior High barged in on her while she was using the bathroom.

Following that incident, the district said that ‘no students were barred or banned from using any bathroom’ at the school.

However, advocates at Tuesday’s meeting said if the school board developed a gender inclusion policy, it would prevent similar incidents.

“I am here for our kids,” said Haley Corradi, a math teacher at Maple Grove Senior High. “Our district’s mission is to inspire and prepare all students, and this is so often a community that gets silenced.”

Corradi recommended the district consider “having enough single stall bathrooms for gender non-conforming students and transgender students.”

This issue was not on the board’s agenda, but members of the LGBTQ community wanted to get their message across.

It’s the school board policy committee’s responsibility to develop new policies, and then bring recommendations to the school board.

Whether that happens, remains to be seen.