DECs move to accept advocate's gender-identity policy, urge government to do the same
Councils working together to review recommended policy, but each district will have separate vote
Some district education councils in New Brunswick are moving to accept an alternative gender-identity school policy, and say the best way forward is for the province to heed legal warnings about the policy now in effect.
Anglophone South District Education Council Chair Roger Nesbitt said the council met this week and intends to vote in the policy recommended by child and youth advocate Kelly Lamrock.
"I found no fault with his report and I agree with what he said," Nesbitt said.
No council has yet voted on the Lamrock idea, and their next meetings are in late August or early September.
Education Minister Bill Hogan, who changed Policy 713 this summer, has said it now makes it mandatory for school staff to deny students' request to informally change pronouns if they're under 16 and their parents don't consent.
But in a report presented this week, Lamrock found that the province's revision, with its attempt to recognize parental rights, violated children's rights and ignored advice from medical professionals and mental health experts.
He came to this conclusion after two months of consultations with parents who support the current policy, and parents who don't. He spoke with medical, educational and legal experts. He said he reviewed 500 written submissions and conducted 50 interviews.
Grade 6 would be line
All versions of the policy -- the original one passed in 2020, the one revised this summer and Lamrock's proposal — require parental consent for name and pronoun changes in official records such as report cards for kids under 16.
The original policy passed in 2020 put no age limit on respecting a child's chosen pronoun informally and verbally. Lamrock's recommended policy would allow kids to informally change their pronouns starting at Grade 6, or at about 12 years old.
Lamrock said kids 12 or older should be presumed to have capacity to make decisions that are at odds with their parents' views. The Grade 6 limit is also in policies in Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador, he said.
For kids under Grade 6, Lamrock said it should be up to the principal to talk to the child and decide if parents and mental health professionals need to be consulted before respecting the chosen pronoun.
Both anglophone and francophone district councils have said the best way forward is for the province to accept the recommended policy before school starts.
"We have to have something that tells us clearly what we have to do," said Ghislaine Foulem, chair of francophone north-east council.
She said she can't say for sure whether her council will vote to accept Lamrock's policy, but said they've already passed a motion that says their first priority is the student.
Higgs's concern is about parents
When Lamrock released his report, Premier Blaine Higgs and Hogan both said they need time to review the recommendations before responding. Higgs said Tuesday that the provincial policy takes precedence, but if councils want to pass their own policies, they should consider parents.
"My thought would be that parents need to play a role in that decision of the DECs. And if they have gone and asked parents, and that's been the parents decision, then I guess we'd have to understand that," Higgs said.
On Friday, Higgs did not respond to CBC questions about whether he would "understand" councils adopting Lamrock's policy, since he consulted parents. Higgs also did not answer questions about whether he's read Lamrock's report.
'We were vindicated'
Nesbitt said he's working with all four anglophone councils to see if they can adopt Lamrock's policy uniformly.
"I've gotten some responses back saying yes, they believe they're headed in that direction."
Anglophone East chair Harry Doyle said Lamrock's report was a relief.
"We were vindicated for the work that we've done, because Kelly Lamrock has come out very strongly in support of the general principles that we used," he said.
Before Lamrock's report, the majority of the province's district education councils had passed motions that would mandate respecting all children's pronouns regardless of age.
They said their duty is to protect children, and school psychologists say denying a child's chosen pronoun causes more harm than using it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
