Gibraltar School Board Approves New Nondiscrimination Policies

By Craig Sterrett , Peninsula Pulse – May 31st, 2023

An aerial view of the Gibraltar School campus. Photo by Brett Kosmider.

District will create private dressing-room stalls, make arrangements for transgender students

The Gibraltar Area School Board this month became the first in Door County to approve a policy to give students an opportunity to use private restrooms or to start using restrooms that do not match their gender at birth.

The board approval came after months of the school board and Policy Committee making language revisions, listening to their attorney, and listening to comments, concerns and sometimes encouragement from the public and parents.

Some parents and members of the public firmly urged the board to approve the policies to create not only gender-nonspecific facilities, but also to remodel restrooms and locker rooms to have floor-to-ceiling walls or dividers, as well as lockable doors, to honor a family’s or student’s assertion that the student is transgender or no longer identifies as the sex assigned at birth.

During previous meetings in April and May, residents and parents expressed concern that some language in the policy gave district officials some leeway in not adhering completely to the guidelines within the policy on a case-by-case basis. That language remained in the final policies approved in May, with board members and Superintendent Brett Stousland noting that the policy could not possibly apply perfectly to every situation that arose.

During one public meeting, former school board member Angela Sherman asserted that the board policy manual is filled with policies and guidelines with legal language that leaves some decisions up to district discretion.

Some parents expressed concern that a change could occur in their child’s restroom/locker preference without the parents knowing. The new policy language indicates that parent notification will occur when the district and a student are creating a student plan for restroom and locker room use.

The board accelerated its consideration of the policies after voters on April 4 approved a $29.8 million demolition and reconstruction project for the oldest, centrally located portions of the school campus, including many hallway restrooms, middle school rooms and the old middle school gymnasium and locker rooms. Stousland said the board and the district legal counsel opted to err on the side of caution when creating policy to match a current court precedent affecting Illinois and Wisconsin.

Although more test cases are likely on the regional and national level, Gibraltar school officials are adhering to a 2017 federal court ruling that the Kenosha [Wisconsin] Unified School District did not go far enough by offering only unisex restrooms or locker rooms to accommodate a transgender student who requested the use of restrooms and dressing rooms that did not match the student’s sex at birth.

The new construction, funded by bonds issued after voter approval, will include boys’ and girls’ restrooms and changing areas, as well as restrooms that can be used by either males or females and that have lockable, private stalls.

Separate from the referendum-funded project, the district will make changes in its current physical-education (PE) varsity locker rooms. In addition, the district is making changes to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements in its elementary and Door Community Auditorium (DCA) restrooms.

“These areas are not part of where new construction will occur,” Stousland said. “For the DCA, elementary bathrooms, two PE locker rooms and two varsity locker rooms, it will be approximately $250,000. The board approved an amount not to exceed $300,000 in case they run into any structural issues, etc.,” Stousland said by email.

Also this month, the Gibraltar school board approved updating the ventilation in the woods and metals room and hiring a new secondary choir teacher, Tami Witter, who is currently at Bay Port High School.

“Tami brings a wealth of experience and an energetic and passionate personality,” Stousland said.

Sturgeon Bay Fills Positions

On May 17, the Sturgeon Bay School Board:

Named Megan Erickson – who has a background in teaching science, reading skills and special education – as the middle school reading interventionist.

Promoted former student clinician and Sturgeon Bay substitute teacher Rachel Miller as the seventh-grade special-education instructor.

Hired Lawrence Mann – who has four years of experience teaching special-education students at Cudahy – as Sturgeon Bay’s eighth-grade special-education teacher.