Jess Grant, identifying herself as a taxpayer from Perronville, addressed the board during public comment and urged the district to repeal its gender-inclusive policy. Grant argued the policy “harms the female students in our district in a number of ways” and cited a federal case, Tennessee v. Cardona, recounting testimony attributed to a plaintiff identified as AC about incidents on a middle-school girls’ team.
Grant told the board she was concerned about boys’ participation in girls’ sports and access to girls’ locker rooms, asserting that “we should not be putting the girls in our district at risk of [sexual] harassment like this,” and said that if such incidents occurred in the district she expects legal exposure.
Board response: There was no formal board action or staff presentation on the district’s gender-inclusive policy during the meeting. The public comment remained part of the record; no staff legal analysis or policy change was proposed at the meeting.
Context and limitations: Grant relied on an out-of-district court filing in Tennessee and framed hypothetical liability for the district; the transcript does not record any specific incidents occurring in the Edmonds School District at this meeting, nor does it include a staff response verifying the applicability of the Tennessee case to district policy.