Trans Student Isolated During Shooter Drill Receives Apology

The superintendent of schools in Stafford County, Va., has apologized to a transgender student who was isolated during a drill to prepare students for sheltering should there ever be a shooter on campus.

The middle school student, who has not been identified, was forced to sit on gymnasium bleachers with a teacher while staff members debated whether she should shelter in the girls' or the boys' locker room during the September 28 drill. Eventually the staff decided she should sit in a hallway leading to one of the locker rooms. The experience kept her "away from her peers and identified as different," local LGBTQ rights group Equality Stafford wrote in a Facebook post.

Parents and other residents protested at the Stafford County Public Schools board meeting Tuesday, at which superintendent Scott Kizner delivered a public apology. He also said he had apologized to the student privately.

"We did not live up to my unwavering expectation that every child and adult -- regardless of race, religion, color, disability, gender, and sexual orientation -- is treated with respect and dignity, and for that I apologize to the student, the family, and the Stafford community," Kizner said at the meeting, according to The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Va. He said the staff members acted as they did because they did not have clear direction on how to handle the situation, not because they had any hostility to the student.

About 20 residents attended the meeting to call for protections for LGBTQ students, including access to appropriate locker rooms and restrooms for trans students. "Don't miss this opportunity," activist Leslie Cook told the board. "Our kids need you."

Some schools in Stafford County, which is located in northern Virginia, require trans students to use employee restrooms or the restrooms designated for the gender they were assigned at birth. The student who was isolated during the drill had at one time been allowed to use the girls' restroom at her elementary school, but the permission was revoked after parents complained.

Kizner told The Free Lance-Star he was not opposed to more inclusive policies for transgender students, but he favored letting individual schools set their own. But concerning student safety, he said, "If there's a real intruder ... we don't then start saying, 'You go to the boys' room; you go the girls' room.'" We would say, 'Go to the nearest secured room.'" Of the drill, he added, "With drills, we learn to do things better. And this is a good example of a drill [where] we learned we need to do it better, and that's my commitment."

The Stafford Education Association, which is the district's teachers union, has called for training of teachers and other staff on LGBTQ issues. Board member Jamie Decatur said she supported such training, and it should have been offered long ago. "Ignoring it isn't making our children feel safe or better educated," she told the Fredericksburg paper.