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Parents and community members urge board to revise non-legal name change policy; debate centers on parental consent
Summary
Several public commenters asked the board to rescind or revise Policy ACA (non-legal name change) to require parental consent for student name changes; speakers from Moms for Liberty and other parent groups said district policy undermines parental rights, while other commenters warned against anti-trans rhetoric at school meetings.
Multiple public commenters raised concerns about the district's non-legal name-change policy (Policy ACA) during public comment, calling for revisions to require parental consent and expressing opposing views about protections for transgender and gender nonconforming students.
Christie Davis, introduced as chapter chair of Moms for Liberty in El Paso County, said the district's version of Policy ACA allows children to change names "to align with their gender without parental approval" and urged the board to pull and revise the policy to add "full parental consent before adopting a child's name change." She told the board that the charter schools TCA and New Summit had adopted versions that include parental consent.
Other public commenters made opposing points. Jennifer Bergstrom, introduced as a D20 parent, said she was concerned about public commenters using religious rhetoric to oppose policies and that terms such as "gender confused" are derogatory and not an accurate description of gender-nonconforming students. Brett Dayberry and additional speakers urged the board to protect parental rights and expressed strong religious-language arguments against the district policy as written.
Superintendent Haber responded later in the meeting to general questions about staff participation in public meetings, saying she had not instructed staff not to attend or speak in public but that staff were encouraged to speak as private citizens when attending public meetings; she did not announce a policy change to ACA during the meeting.
Ending: Several commenters asked for immediate policy revision; the board did not vote on ACA or adopt changes during the segment of the meeting provided in the transcript.
