A former educator in Maine School Administrative District 75 (MSAD 75), who resigned following the district’s adoption of a “transgender and gender-expansive” student policy, launched a petition drive in defense of students’ right to free speech that was rejected last week by the district’s Board of Directors.
MSAD 75 covers schools in Topsham, Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, and Harpswell.
The longtime MSAD 75 substitute teacher and paraprofessional Rebecca Brooks resigned in November after the school board approved the controversial transgender student policy following months of heated debate surrounding the policy’s balancing of students’ right to privacy and parents’ rights to be informed.
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In her Nov. 17 resignation letter, Brooks, who worked in the district for 17 years, wrote that the board’s adoption of the policy “is leading this community down a treacherous rabbit hole.”
“This district is crossing a dangerous boundary by entertaining the transgender dysphoria phenomenon,” Brooks wrote to MSAD 75 Superintendent Heidi O’Leary and the Board of Directors, arguing that the new policy would create a “hostile environment” by allowing “this age inappropriate topic into our schools.”
The stated purpose of the policy in question, ACAAA, is to “foster a learning environment that is safe and free from discrimination, harassment and bullying,” and to “assist in the educational and social integration of transgender and gender-expansive students.”
The policy advises that in case of a student whose parents are unaware of their child identifying as transgender or “gender-expansive,” “the Superintendent should be consulted, and the matter resolved on a case-by-case basis” before the student’s parents are informed.
The policy also allows transgender or “gender-expansive” students to use bathrooms, locker rooms and other school facilities in accordance with their “gender identity.”
Brooks’ petition, however, focused solely on section D part 3 of the policy, that requires students “be addressed by all school staff, (including but not limited to) substitutes, coaches, volunteers and other students by the name and pronoun corresponding to their gender identity that is asserted at school.”
In her petition, Brooks called the policy a “direct affront to students’ 1st Amendment rights.”
“With this policy every student from elementary to high school is required to conform to an individual’s preferred pronoun ideology,” the petition reads.
At the MSAD 75 Board of Director’s March 28 meeting, Brooks told the board during public comment that the ACAAA policy had a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech.
“The attempt to use children to silence anyone who is uncomfortable with the ideology is nothing short of bullying,” Brooks said. “As I have said before, every student everywhere deserves a voice regardless of whether others disagree with what they say.”
“Our very freedoms given to us as citizens of this country guarantee those rights cannot, nor should they be, stolen. Especially when done so to placate any one person or group,” she said.
Another speaker during public comment, Brian Roy of Bowdoin, told the board that he stands in “complete solidarity” with Brooks, and that her petition makes a “very modest request” to protect students’ rights against “compelled speech,” and to protect the district from potential future lawsuits.
Later in the March 28 meeting, MSAD 75 Board Chair Hutson Hayward acknowledged receiving Brooks’ community petition, but after conferring with the district’s legal counsel concluded that a change to the policy compelling the use of certain pronouns could violate other district policies or state law.
Hayward said that he was informed by the district’s legal counsel that “intentionally using incorrect pronouns or names of students or staff could be considered illegal harassment and/or discrimination based on their gender identity,” which would violate the district’s anti-bullying policy and state anti-discrimination laws.
Hayward added that the district’s policy is consistent with position of the Maine Department of Education, Maine Human Rights Commission, and model ACAAA policies of the Maine School Management Association.
He then referred questions regarding potential disciplinary action taken under ACAAA to the district’s administration.
The board’s rejection of Brooks’ proposed change to the policy was covered by the local news outlet the Harpswell Anchor, in an April 2 article entitled “Official says proposed trans student policy change could promote harassment.”
In a letter dated April 2 obtained by the Maine Wire, Brooks responded to the Harpswell Anchor’s coverage of her petition, claiming that journalists at the outlet were “working overtime to disparage me and misrepresent the true nature of the petition I created.”
Brooks wrote that her petition “in no way is promoting harassment or bullying,” and that it “was only created to protect students’ First Amendment rights.”
“I find it quite ironic that journalists (a group of people who cherish their freedom of press) are seeking to dismiss this fact in an effort to villainize me and frankly the 300 plus citizens, including educators, who signed the petition,” Brooks wrote.
Brooks reiterated her concerned that students may be “trapped by the chilling effect” of the policy.
“There is hard work to be done in our schools. Our students are suffering both emotionally and academically,” she wrote. “I can only hope that MSAD75 board members begin addressing the more critical issues facing our students, rather than continue using them as pawns in a vile display of gaslighting.”
