A Saco ed-tech who worked with disabled children delivered an impassioned speech at Wednesday’s school board meeting, explaining her decision to resign after the school tried to make her refer to a female co-worker as a man and to force her students to do the same.
“I can’t work in a school under Maine law until it changes. There’s no way. I can’t go through intimidation like that when I’m just trying to pay my bills,” said Lauren Grenier, speaking to The Maine Wire.
“I was interrogated, intimidated, and ultimately forced out for my beliefs. This is not accountability, this is upside down. This is wrong, and parents deserve to know the truth,” she said during the school board meeting.
Grenier was beginning her fourth year as an ed-tech at Saco’s C.K. Burns School, where she loved working with disabled children, when she was surprised to learn that her new female coworker wanted to be called a man.
Grenier told The Maine Wire that her co-worker was hired under the name “Naomi” and appeared to be a woman who had undergone no surgeries or treatments to appear male, and who continued to use female restrooms.
Nevertheless, Grenier’s new co-worker wanted her, and the disabled children under her care, to refer to her as Mr. Kai and by male pronouns.
During her school board speech and her interview with The Maine Wire, Grenier clarified that she has no issue with people who identify as transgender and was willing to use the name “Kai” to refer to her co-worker. She was concerned, however, that forcing disabled students to refer to an obviously female ed-tech as a man would lead to confusion.
In order to explain the situation to the children, Grenier feared she would essentially have to teach them about radical gender ideology.
“I was the first person in this district to learn that a staff member, a new staff member with whom I’ve been working closely with, wanted to use male pronouns, and wanted to, wanted the students that we worked with to refer to her as ‘mister,'” said Grenier in her school-board speech.
Grenier confided in her case manager about the situation but was told that she must use the ed-tech’s preferred pronouns and must be an example for the children so they would also learn to use them.
“I was further instructed that I must correct children with intellectual and developmental disabilities who naturally use she/her pronouns, and tell them that they were wrong,” she told the school board.
“These are children who may process the world differently, but they do get it. They know when something doesn’t make sense. Forcing them to deny what they clearly see is not inclusion, it’s betrayal,” she added.
The new ed-tech’s gender identity was not the only problem in the classroom, according to Grenier. She also voiced concerns about the ed-tech’s alleged conduct in the classroom and “meanness” toward the students.
Grenier elaborated on that alleged misconduct when speaking to The Maine Wire. She explained that the ed-tech was reportedly constantly on her phone and watching anime when she was meant to be caring for the students.
The ed-tech, according to Grenier, was frequently impatient with their disabled students and did things such as pulling markers out of a disabled child’s hands.
Grenier told The Maine Wire that she repeatedly asked for help and informed her superiors about the conduct of her trans-identifying co-worker, but nothing was done.
Eventually, Grenier informed her case manager that she refused to teach her students to use male pronouns for the female teacher, bringing the situation to a head.
On September 16, Grenier said she was told by Principal April Noble that they would be holding a meeting later that day to discuss the situation and that a union representative would be present.
Initially, Grenier said she was happy to have the opportunity to explain her side of the situation.
On the same day, while Grenier was waiting for the meeting to begin, she allegedly saw the trans-identifying ed-tech forcibly restraining a student, an incident she then reported to her superiors.
“Just minutes before the meeting, I witnessed what I believe was an illegal restraint on a student. Another colleague described the staff member as ‘hauling’ on that child. While I cannot define her exact meaning, I personally saw what I believe was an unsafe and unauthorized hold, and I reported it truthfully,” she said during the school board meeting.
She believes that the situation should have caused the meeting on the ed-tech’s pronouns to be postponed, but it did not.
“Instead of addressing this serious safety concern, less than 15 minutes later I was pulled into the scheduled meeting about pronoun use. This meeting could have and should have been postponed. But it wasn’t. The truth was clear; protecting students, or even acknowledging how distraught I was, was not the priority. Silencing me was,” she told the school board.
“Instead of accountability, there was a cover-up. Instead of addressing a clear safety violation, district leadership interrogated me about pronouns,” she added.
The meeting was attended by Saco Schools Director of Operations Chris Indorf, who, according to Grenier, refused to tell her his position in the school administration. He also reportedly asked her repeatedly throughout the meeting how she could be sure that her female co-worker was actually female.
Grenier told the Maine Wire that she only learned halfway through the meeting that it was an investigation.
That evening, after the meeting was over, Grenier tendered her resignation.
On the same day, her trans-identifying co-worker also resigned, but, as far as Grenier is aware, faced no formal disciplinary reprimand for her conduct.
“Instead of facing public responsibility, the staff member has been allowed to resign with dignity, and without acknowledgement of the harm done,” Grenier told the school board.
Grenier told The Maine Wire that she loves working with children and hopes to have an opportunity to do so again, but that she will not work as a teacher in Maine’s public schools while they have policies forcing compliance with radical gender ideology.
