On the heels of a mid-September announcement, Youngkin and the Virginia Dept. of Education are now overseeing new “model policies” for how transgender students are defined and treated at their public schools. A key factor in that policy is the school will recognize a student as transgender if the parent asks the school to do so in writing.
That policy comes after woke teachers, counselors, and principals have been busted for hiding “transitioning” students from their clueless parents, who are often portrayed as enemies of progress. Those same school leaders have been accused of grooming those students to identify as the opposite sex at school, and to change their names, because many classrooms have been transformed into virtual indoctrination centers to push the trans craze.
And now all of that has changed.
“We first want to love every kid. And we want to make sure we're protecting their dignity, and their privacy, and their safety,” Youngkin, speaking about the new public school policy, recently told Fox News. “And the difference in what our policies are really focused on is indeed bringing parents fully in.”
The new policy for transgender students comes after Gov. Youngkin addressed anti-white, race-based school lessons during the first weeks of his current term. Back in February he signed Executive Order 1, which kicked Critical Race Theory, and related tenets of the divisive theory, out of public school classrooms.
McAuliffe chose schools over parents
Back in 2021, when political newcomer Youngkin jumped into the gubernatorial race, Virginia’s public schools were in a wild uproar under the term-limited governor, Ralph Northam. Across the state, stunned parents learned their quiet suburban schools were immersing their children in “equity” lessons about race and “white privilege,” and transgender-based lessons about gender fluidity and using personal pronouns.
In the governor’s race, Youngkin faced former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, most famous as Bill Clinton’s political aide and hatchet man. Youngkin recognized the anger and frustration among parents, and made that a campaign issue, while McAuliffe gambled on playing dumb about the hot-button issues and defending the teachers’ unions that endorsed him.
“You believe school systems should tell children what to do,” Youngkin, in a debate just weeks before the election, told McAuliffe. “I believe parents should be in charge of their kids’ education.”
“I don’t think parents,” McAuliffe replied, “should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Parents have 'fundamental right'
The new policy announced last month even recognized Virginia’s public schools are abandoning left-wing indoctrination of the past. The goal of the former policy was “achieving cultural and societal transformation in schools,” the Virginia Dept. of Education announced.
Elsewhere, in the same policy announcement, the Youngkin-led state agency admitted it had “disregarded the rights of parents and ignored other legal and constitutional principles that significantly impact how schools educate students, including transgender students."
Among the state's woke school teachers, if there is any confusion over parents’ rights, the guidelines state the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives parents a “fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.”
Victoria Cobb, of the Family Foundation of Virginia, tells AFN the new governor is proving he meant what he said as a candidate. And now Family Foundation, she says, is going to make sure the state follows through.
“We're still going to be looking at every single county,” she says, “to make sure that they pass parent-centered policies around what happens with transgender issues and students that are confused on their sexuality."
