Using preferred names and pronouns at school is part of the transgender agenda embraced by many American schools, but Satellite High School on the Space Coast of Florida is not one of them.
Brevard Public Schools did not renew its contact with teacher Melissa Calhoun after she used a student's preferred name without obtaining parental consent as mandated by the "Parental Authorization for Deviation from Student's Legal Name Form," a 2023 rule from the state board of education that lays out how to enforce a section regarding pronouns and names from House Bill 1069.
Calhoun's teaching certification may also be in jeopardy with the state board of education due to her actions.
Students have reportedly rallied and petitioned for their English teacher, but noting that Florida law requires that parents be involved in decisions like this, Erika Donalds of the America First Policy Institute's (AFPI) Center for Education Opportunity thinks "the school district did the right thing."
Teachers cannot take it upon themselves to affirm a child's chosen gender outside of the way they were born, she says.
"This is a law of Florida," Donalds reiterates. "It's a parents' rights issue, and I'm glad that it's being upheld."
She has heard of many cases of teachers secretly using students' preferred names, but this is the only case she knows of in the whole nation where a teacher has been held accountable.
"I have been part of this parents' rights movement since I was on the school board starting in 2014," Donalds notes. "We saw firsthand teachers filling out forms saying, 'I am going to call the child by a different name at school than they do at home' and checking a box that says, 'I am going to hide that from the parents.' That's what gave rise to these laws in Florida and the reason why parents now know that this is an issue."
In addition to breaking the law, she says teachers who secretly use a students' preferred name and/or pronouns at school are also breaking parents' trust.
