DELAWARE VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT, PA — The Delaware Valley School Board voted unanimously to change policies regarding transgender students’ bathroom and locker room use, in response to a letter the district received from the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
The vote means the school district will require transgender students to use the bathroom and locker room in accordance with their sex assigned at birth.
Ten years ago, DVSD entered into an agreement with the OCR, adopting policies that allowed transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
The agreement, signed in March 2016, followed a lawsuit from a transgender student, and an OCR investigation which found DVSD violated that student’s Title IX rights by subjecting her to different treatment on the basis of sex. Since that time, the priorities and the politics of the OCR and the Department of Education have changed, particularly since the start of the second Trump administration.
The recent OCR letter, addressed to DVSD Superintendent Brian Blaum and dated February 25, terminated the prior agreement and alleged that the district’s policies, which include gender-based discrimination as a form of sex-based discrimination, themselves violate Title IX.
The letter gave the district 30 days to change the policies, after which the OCR would open a Title IX investigation into the district.
Brian Taylor, an attorney brought in by the district, said the letter serves four functions: it closes out the monitoring the district was under after the original OCR agreement, gives the district justification for anything it did in response to that original agreement, directs the district on what to do next and addresses the potential consequences would be if the district did not comply.
“[The OCR’s] focus has moved away from the typical sexual assault or sexual discrimination that it looked at before in the past, and it’s focused primarily on sports and transgender issues and these investigations have been targeted on that,” Taylor said.
The Delaware Valley High School Learning Commons was filled with concerned citizens at the March 19 meeting. Many attendees carried Pride flags, and several walked out after the board voted on the policy change.
The majority of speakers urged the board not to enact the change. Several described the harms trans students would face by removing these protections and raised questions about enforcement and how removing these protections would square with the 14th Amendment and Pennsylvania state anti-discrimination laws.
Aleksander Lehtovuori of Dingman Township read a letter written by a DVHS student in the district who described feeling “tired of doors it took me years to open being slammed shut in my face.”
Amanda Pauley of Delaware Township said that policies regarding gender identity are “not abstract.”
“They’re not culture war talking points,” Pauley said. “They are about whether a child can get through a school day without being isolated, shamed, or being told who they are is a problem.”
Three audience members spoke in support of changing the policies, with some expressing concerns that the change would not go far enough. Matthew Contreras of Milford Township said complying with the letter is “not optional” and called for the district to distinguish “based on biology at birth.”
“This framework protects privacy, safety and fairness for every student, especially our girls and young women,” Contreras said.
Taylor James of Milford Township said that in the 10 years that the policy was in place, there was not “a single incident or issue in our bathrooms.”
“What are we doing here? Why is this what we’re talking about?” James said. “Perhaps our time and our tax dollars would be better spent focusing on how we can improve the district and help our students thrive rather than focusing on which students we can discriminate against and where everyone can pee.”
James also addressed the district’s LGBTQ students directly:
“I need you to know that you belong here exactly as you are and that we see you and the entire community behind me sees you. You are perfect the way you are, no matter what happens in this room tonight,” James said.
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