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School committee adopts updated nondiscrimination and Title IX procedures after extended review and public comment
Summary
After a lengthy discussion about how Title IX and state nondiscrimination provisions apply — including a public question about elementary classroom practices — the Pembroke School Committee approved multiple nondiscrimination and grievance policies and rescinded a duplicate harassment regulation.
The Pembroke School Committee on Dec. 3 voted to approve a package of revised nondiscrimination and grievance policies, including ACA (nondiscrimination on specified bases), a Title IX discrimination and grievance procedure, a policy covering pregnancy and lactation accommodations, and related harassment and retaliation policies. The committee also voted to rescind an older student-harassment regulation that duplicated newer language.
Before the votes, members and staff reviewed the policy language line by line and discussed how Title IX language would interact with Massachusetts law. Some members urged care in applying nondiscrimination standards in elementary classrooms, arguing that developmentally appropriate behavior should not be treated as harassment. "Sometimes kids are just kids," a member said during the discussion, urging balance in how policies are applied at lower grade levels.
A member of the public, Jane Cornyn of Water Street, asked whether routine classroom divisions by sex (for example, assigning groups by "boys and girls") could now be interpreted as discrimination. "Are you saying that children cannot be divided, boys and girls, at all anymore?" she asked. Committee members and staff said the grievance procedures require robust review and that the bar for Title IX harassment is high — typically focused on conduct that denies access to educational programs — and that religion and other classes are also protected under the policies.
The committee moved and seconded each policy and recorded the votes as unanimous voice approvals in the meeting transcript. Members said the policy subcommittee had worked closely with legal counsel in drafting the second-read materials and that more minimal, targeted editing might be preferable to extensive additions that could create ambiguity.
The committee set its next meeting for Dec. 17 and flagged an upcoming discussion about local MCAS requirements and maintenance-of-effort budget planning pending guidance from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
