Trustees at Keller Independent School District approved policy changes at a school board meeting, requiring teachers to use pronouns that match a student’s biological sex on their birth certificate.
NBC DFW reported that board members unanimously approved the changes, including a revision requiring schools to notify parents if a student uses a different name or pronoun not assigned at birth.
Additionally, parents must now provide written notice granting permission for their student to be referred to by a different name or gender pronoun.
District parent Marissa Bryce supported the policy changes.
“I think that it’s a good starting point. Parents need to know what’s going on with their school, they need to know what their kids are thinking,” she told the news outlet.
However, not all parents supported the District’s policies.
During public comments, district parent Mary Anne Weatherred stated, “Not everybody’s families are the same, and not everybody’s families are going to accept kids exploring their gender identity and it’s going to make a difficult home situation for them.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also wrote a letter to Keller ISD calling the policies unlawful and discriminatory.
In response, the district issued a statement maintaining that its policies protect parental rights.
We have received that letter from the ACLU. As for the policy revisions on this evening’s agenda, those are focused on the fundamental rights of parents to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of their children.
In June 2023, Texas Scorecard reported Keller ISD’s approval of policies separating bathrooms by biological sex and preventing the forced use of particular pronouns.
Soon after, the ACLU filed a federal civil rights complaint, alleging that the district’s measures recognizing biological sex were “discriminatory.”
Citizens Defending Freedom, a conservative citizen advocacy group, defended the district’s stance and dismissed the ACLU’s complaint as “baseless.”
