Mesa teachers respond to board member's lawsuit over transgender guidelines

A week after Mesa Public Schools governing board member Rachel Walden sued the district over its guidelines for supporting transgender students, several district teachers told the board they were disappointed by the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed on Walden's behalf in Maricopa County Superior Court on Nov. 20 by America First Legal, a conservative group formed in 2021 by former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller.

The suit alleges Mesa Public Schools' guidelines for supporting transgender students violate Arizona's parents' bill of rights law, which says parents have the right to direct their child's upbringing, education and health care. The district's guidelines permit transgender students to access facilities consistent with their gender identity and to use names and pronouns that reflect their identity. The lawsuit claims the district purposely keeps parents out of the loop when a gender-related support plan is implemented for their child.

In a letter sent to district staff and families over the summer, Superintendent Andi Fourlis responded to claims that students were being placed on transgender support plans without parent notification and that support plans help students with medical transitions. Neither of those claims are true, Fourlis wrote.

The district's support checklist for transgender and gender nonconforming students says that parents and guardians are notified of the support provided at school. The board sought legal advice over the summer regarding the guidelines and was told by a Mesa-based law firm that the guidelines do not appear to violate state or federal law, including Arizona's parents' bill of rights.

'Baseless': Several teachers criticize lawsuit at board meeting

Several teachers expressed displeasure about the lawsuit at a district governing board meeting on Nov. 28.

"This frivolous lawsuit is a distraction to what the district needs to focus on, as well as unnecessarily spending funds to defend the district," said Kelly Berg, a teacher at Dobson High School and the president of the Mesa Education Association, the union representing educators in the district. "All students deserve to be supported in our schools."

Graham Corp, a special education teacher at Rhodes Junior High School, indirectly criticized Walden, who joined the board in January, during public comment.

"People who claim to want to reduce spending in the district will waste the district's very precious and limited money fighting a lawsuit that is baseless, silly, a waste of time," he said. He described the lawsuit as an attempt to "score brownie points" for an upcoming election.

Walden is running for a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission. She did not respond to a request for comment from The Arizona Republic.

Elizabeth Tanner, an English teacher at Westwood High School, told the board that the district has to ensure it protects all students.

"I was angry and disappointed when I first heard about the lawsuit," Tanner said in an interview. "I could not understand why one of our board members would do such a thing and actively go to hurt our students who need these policies."

Tanner said that the district should provide training to educators on supporting transgender students but that the guidelines are "at least a place to start."

In an interview, Janet Kovach, the vice president of the Mesa Education Association and a math teacher at Rhodes Junior High School, said the guidelines are in place because the district "had to make a plan."

She said that it's her obligation to ensure all students "feel safe, wanted and accepted."

Mesa teacher says guidelines were a 'game changer' for her son

Tami Staas, a third grade teacher at Summit Academy, told the board on Tuesday that the guidelines were important in supporting her son, who is transgender, when he was in high school.

In an interview, she said that her son began his transition when he was a freshman in the Mesa Public Schools district during the 2011-12 school year. His school "didn't know what to do," she said.

Because there was no other way to change his name in the school's system, he legally changed his name, which Staas said was a financial hardship on her family at the time. She said he was asked to use the nurse's restroom, a significant walk that would get him in trouble for being gone too long from class. Because of that, he didn't drink water at school to avoid using the bathroom, Staas said.

"It was constant othering, constant removal from the community," she said.

The guidelines were implemented in 2015, during his senior year of high school, and Staas said they were a "game changer."

His health improved, and "he thrived," she said. "His GPA soared … because he felt safe. He felt like the people around him, the educators that were teaching him, valued him as a person and were there to protect him."

Staas said she thinks the lawsuit doesn't consider that parents who want to support their transgender kids, like her, "have rights too."

"So, that law also applies to us," she said, referring to Arizona's parents' bill of rights law.

Staas, who is also the executive director of Arizona Trans Youth and Parent Organization, told the board on Tuesday that she is "always eager" to recommend Mesa Public Schools to families who have transgender kids "as an accepting and welcoming space."

"I know how important it is to feel your children are safe and protected while they're at school," Staas told the board. "Your transgender student guidelines do just that: they protect students."

Reach the reporter at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mesa teachers criticize board member's lawsuit over trans guidelines