‘Furries,’ book bans, transgender rights take over Lee’s Summit school board election

Several Kansas City area school board races this spring have been quiet, with some districts not even holding elections because candidates don’t have any competition. In one race, no one is on the ballot so a write-in candidate will win.

But not in Lee’s Summit.

Seven candidates are running for three seats on the school board on April 4. Three of them are campaigning on hot-topic conservative issues, such as removing library books they say qualify as “pornography,” restricting transgender students’ access to sports teams and bathrooms, and expanding school choice.

Democrats and progressive parents have said those candidates operate on the fringes, arguing they want to ban books and would harm district efforts to improve equity. Republicans counter that parents should have more of a say over their children’s education, and that the district needs to refocus on the academic basics. The races are technically nonpartisan.

In North Kansas City and Liberty, some candidates are bringing similar debates to their races. Still, the lack of candidates elsewhere may signal dwindling energy after an era of COVID-19 disputes and hyperpartisan politics.

But in Lee’s Summit, conservatives hope to build on ground gained last year, when two candidates critical of diversity initiatives won seats.

Newcomer David Grady, a self-described conservative, has perhaps taken the most heat this election cycle, after a photo surfaced of him and his wife rallying outside in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021 as rioters tried to overtake the U.S. Capitol.

Grady has addressed his visit to D.C., saying he was only there attending the “peaceful and friendly rallies” outside.

“I do not condone violence. I do not condone terrorism. I do not condone abuse, bullying or harassing behavior. We stayed with our group in the designated areas where police were peacefully observing. I did not go into the Capitol buildings. I did not go into the Supreme Court. We stayed outside with the hundreds of other law abiding citizens around us,” he wrote on Facebook.

Grady is joined in the race by other more conservative candidates William “Billy” Peterson and Regina Garrett. The others in the race are Kathy Campbell — the lone incumbent in the race — and more progressive candidates endorsed by the teachers union: Stacy Cronhardt, Kamile Johnson and Erica Miller. The three top vote-getters will fill the three seats. (Incumbent Kim Fritchie is not seeking reelection, and Megan Marshall resigned after winning a seat as a Jackson County legislator.)

In one of the stranger points of this race, at a February forum hosted by Parents Changing Education, an advocacy group endorsing conservatives for school board, a moderator asked Lee’s Summit candidates about the “furry agenda,” referring to people who role play as animals.

Some far-right politicians and parents across the country have circulated rumors about litter boxes being placed in school bathrooms. It’s a false, slippery slope conspiracy that has seeped into local schools from those spreading extreme, baseless rhetoric while opposing accommodations for transgender students to use the facilities that align with their gender identity.

“If we’re going to let people crawl around on the floor and have kids lead them around on leashes and call them animals, that’s a distraction. How’s the teacher supposed to teach when you have kids who answer questions by purring at the teacher?” Grady said at the forum.

Campbell, who is seeking a second term, said at the forum the district has received multiple questions in recent weeks about furries.

“There are no litter boxes in Lee’s Summit High School. I can’t believe we have to answer that question, but we’re answering it,” Campbell said.

Peterson said, “I don’t know if there are litter boxes” at the high school. He added, “If we’re going to allow a trans person to identify not as their sex, then do we have to, if we do have someone who starts to identify as a furry, do we then have to accommodate that person as a furry? I think that’s the root of the question maybe.”

Garrett alleged she’s heard stories of other schools providing litter boxes, despite several district officials across the country and in the Kansas City area debunking the baseless claim. She said, “the question is, is it going to be an accommodation?”

Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Book challenges

The election comes as 28 district committees wrap up their reviews of 90 library books challenged by a small group of parents.

Six individuals sent nearly 200 challenges to the district this school year, sparking a lengthy review process to determine whether to retain or remove the books. Parent groups have encouraged the challenges by sharing lists of titles they consider inappropriate, many of them written by or featuring characters who are people of color or identify as LGBTQ.

They include Kurt Vonnegut’s classic “Slaughterhouse-Five,” a science fiction novel exploring the horrors of war; Margaret Atwood’s bestselling “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a story of a dystopian, totalitarian society where fertile women are forced into sexual servitude; Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” about an 11-year-old Black girl who yearns to fit white American beauty standards; and “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a coming-of-age essay collection by George M. Johnson with LGBTQ themes.

Library professionals say they vet books carefully, by evaluating maturity level, age recommendations, content, their code of ethics and more before selecting them for use in schools.

The school board candidates — who could be tasked with voting on whether to retain or remove books — have varying opinions on the debate.

Campbell has served on the board for three years, including as board president this past year. She works in information technology in the health care industry, and said both of her sons graduated from Lee’s Summit schools.

On book challenges, Campbell told The Star she can only say so much because she might be asked to vote on whether to retain some of the library materials, if a parent appeals a committee’s decision.

“What I will say is our district follows state and federal laws. We are law abiding and we have a policy and process in place if someone has a concern with a book we may have. We are following that process to the letter,” Campbell said. “…If a parent has a specific concern with a book and doesn’t want their own child to read it, they can also work with a library specialist and say ‘I don’t want this for my child.’ I think that’s also important.”

Cronhardt is an occupational therapist who said she has two children in the district. She did not return The Star’s request for an interview, but answered its voter guide. At a forum held last week by the Lee’s Summit Chamber of Commerce, she said the district is fortunate to have “one of the most educated, qualified and storied library science departments.”

Cronhardt said library books and curriculum go through “rigorous evaluation before they are placed in the library. And I think there’s a good system in place for parents to have control for their students as well.”

Garrett has a background in customer service and has two children in the district. She did not return The Star’s request for interview.

“I believe the school books should be restricted because the kids have restrictions on their Chromebooks. I don’t see what the difference is,” Garrett said at the February school board meeting. “We don’t allow pornography. We don’t allow certain sites for them to have access to on their Chromebooks. So why are we putting it in the school libraries?”

Grady, a manufacturing teacher at Metropolitan Community College, said he had three children graduate from Lee’s Summit. He did not return The Star’s requests for comment.

“I think the standards have been put too low where we’ve allowed things in the library that never should have been there. So I do support getting those things out of the library,” Grady said at the Chamber forum. “…I believe in parents’ rights. If you want to buy pornography for your children, I’m not going to stop you. But I don’t think Lee’s Summit should supply it to the children whose parents don’t want them to have it.”

Johnson is vice president of pharmacy services at KC Care Health Center and said she has two young children, including one in the district. She told The Star, “I trust the librarians” to do their job.

“Who I listen to and rely on the most are the teachers and the librarians. Library science is a degree. It has a rigorous curriculum. They are experts in those fields and follow a librarians code of ethics to give people access to information,” she said. “I think we should rely on them and the processes they have in place to evaluate these books. And make sure we read the entire book. It is easy to take an excerpt from anything and lose the meaning of the entire book.”

Miller said she is a licensed family therapist and mother of three children in the district. She said she trusts trained library professionals to evaluate books and determine what is appropriate.

“I think there are so many battles that we need to be fighting. Just within the past week, with the school shooting, and we’re talking about banning books and not banning assault rifles? That’s a huge issue to me,” Miller told The Star. “Let’s talk about the safety of our children and how to keep our children safe. I’m against book banning. We have processes in place. I believe it’s a process that works.”

Peterson served in the U.S. Air Force and says he has three young children not yet school-aged. He did not return The Star’s request for comment. He has pushed for books to be removed, calling them pornography.

“Something to take note is the libraries in our area turn over about 2,000 books a year, as I understand it. So if the libraries are not being accused of banning or censoring material in their process of removing material on a normal turnover basis, I don’t think we should be calling concerned members of the community likewise book burners,” he said at the Chamber forum.

LGBTQ rights

Candidates also have spoken out on the ongoing debate over transgender rights, both in the Missouri statehouse and at the local level.

The Republican-controlled Missouri Senate recently passed a pair of bills that would ban gender-affirming care for minors and prohibit transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. Meanwhile the Kansas House approved a bill which would bar transgender people from entering single-sex spaces such as domestic violence shelters, bathrooms and prison wards.

At the local level, last year, the Gardner Edgerton school district in Johnson County approved a policy prohibiting transgender children from using their preferred restrooms or participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

Campbell said the district follows policies approved by the Missouri State High School Activities Association.

“At my core, I believe the board’s focus needs to be on our students, individual students and how we can help them be successful in their life. That’s important from a student well-being standpoint, which speaks to safety and belonging for every one of our students in this district,” she told The Star.

At the Chamber forum, Grady denied that people can be transgender, and called the sports debate a “war on women.”

“In the beginning, God created them male and female. I don’t believe there are 86 genders or 114 genders or 16 genders. There’s male and female,” he said.

Cronhardt countered, “First and foremost, transgender people do exist.”

“In my own personal experience, the transgender people that I know in my life did not embark on that very important decision in order to dominate athletic performance,” she said at the forum. “I feel as though that is a trope that’s been placed on misinformation and disinformation on the topic. And people fear what they do not know.”

Garrett argued that female athletes’ “thunder is being stolen” and “I don’t believe this is a way to empower women.”

Miller said that as a woman of color, she has “been in positions where I’ve been excluded or I’ve been left out of something because of the color of my skin. So I have to think about how that felt for me. I don’t want any young person to walk into a room and feel like they don’t belong. I’m not in favor of excluding anyone.”

Peterson does not believe in transgender inclusion in sports, arguing that a “a female, born biological female who has the endocrine system of a female and hormone system of a female, who has worked their entire life, will never be able to out-lift a biological male or outperform a biological male because of testosterone levels and a different endocrine system.”

Johnson said that the LGBTQ community “continues to be hurt by certain legislation” and that “all students should feel like they belong.” She said more guidance is needed to determine how to address the issue in sports.

“It’s hard. It’s a question of humanity I feel like sometimes, to say what one should and should not be allowed to do,” she said. “There was a time I wasn’t allowed to marry a white man if I wanted to., when I couldn’t share a bus or a water fountain.”

School choice

The board candidates also have drastically different views on whether Missouri should expand school choice and provide taxpayer dollars for students to attend private schools.

This session, Missouri Republicans have pushed for open enrollment, which would allow students to transfer to schools outside of their home district. Kansas City area school districts and Democrats have criticized the legislation, saying it would drain resources from districts and segregate schools.

Kansas lawmakers are pushing the largest school choice bill in state history, a voucher-like program that creates a fund for families to use taxpayer dollars for private and homeschooling expenses.

More progressive candidates oppose such programs, saying that public schools are forced to follow accountability measures not required for private schools. While parents should have the choice of where to send their children to school, they said the taxpayer dollars should not help pay for it.

Johnson said, “I believe public funds should be reserved for public schools. I’m a product of a public school system. I believe in it and the transparency and accountability.”

Miller said she is opposed to both school vouchers and open enrollment.

“I don’t believe that taxpayer money should go to private or parochial schools. Our public schools are set up to teach and educate students no matter where they come from, no matter the socio-economic status or level of ability. Our public schools educate all people. Private schools have the ability to pick and choose what students come in.”

Cronhardt agrees that public tax dollars should stay with public schools.

Campbell said, “Our local school board is elected and accountable for every one of those tax dollars that come in and how we spend that in service of our students. In many of these other situations you don’t have that. In charter schools and private schools and homeschool situations, there’s not that accountability.”

The more conservative candidates all support school choice.

“I do support the tax dollars following the children,” Grady said at the Chamber forum. “…If people decide they want to pull their kids out and put them in a school that focuses more on academics and really puts the money and the emphasis into education, why shouldn’t their tax dollars go with them? Also, if we fail as a district, why should we get to keep the money?”

Peterson said at the February forum that parents feel they can’t keep their public schools “in check,” while “it’s the tax dollars of the parents that fund that school to start with.

“If the school is doing right by the parents, you have nothing to worry about with school choice, not a thing. Otherwise, get your game back in education, get your head back in education, and you don’t have to worry about the funding.”

He said students in “failing districts” should have the opportunity to switch districts.

Garrett said at the Chamber forum that people assume parents leave public schools for religious reasons, but claimed some are leaving because they are unhappy with the academics.

Along with the contentious races, district officials hope a ballot proposal to increase teacher salaries will help bring out voters. Officials are asking voters to approve reallocating funds collected through property taxes so they can lower the debt service levy by 20 cents and shift it to the general operating levy.

Taxes that residents pay would not be affected. The district would use the $5.4 million to raise employee pay, aiming to better retain and attract teachers.

Elsewhere, in Kansas City Public Schools, two newcomers are running unopposed, so they will be automatically seated. In a third race, no one filed to run so a write-in candidate will win. Other districts — Center, Park Hill and Blue Springs — do not have competitive races, so candidates will not appear on the ballot.