Miami-Dade County, FL – During the 2020-2021 school year, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) posted a document to their Academics and Transformation website titled “Guidelines for Promoting Safe and Inclusive Schools – Supporting Transgender and Gender Expansive Students”. This document contains guidelines that state students have the right to choose restrooms and locker rooms, and overnight field trip sleeping quarters that reflect the gender with which they identify. It also provides guidelines on addressing the needs and concerns of each student by engagement with the student, and the student’s parents “when appropriate”, as well as creating a Gender Support Plan to make sure that the school, students and parents (when appropriate) are “on the same page.” This verbiage allows for parents who are unsupportive of their child’s discordant gender identity to be excluded when the school is addressing the needs of the student.
As of the 2022-2023 school year, the guidelines document was still posted online and enacted regardless of the recent Florida State Board of Education (SBE) rule, 6A-10.086. SBE rule 6A-10.086 requires that any policies or procedures implemented by a Florida school district must be consistent with the Parents’ Bill of Rights (HB 241) and that parents be notified and fully informed if a school allows for separation of bathrooms or locker rooms based on criteria other than biological sex at birth. The M-DCPS guidelines document is clearly in violation of the new SBE rule.
In a major win for parental rights in Miami-Dade County, newly elected school board members, Monica Colucci and Roberto Alonso, worked closely with district administration to facilitate positive changes in district policies and ensure compliance with the new SBE rule. In response to the determined efforts by board members Alonso and Colucci, the M-DCPS district has distributed an internal memorandum to all school principals indicating that signage is in place to designate certain areas by biological sex at birth. Additionally, the Guidelines for Promoting Safe and Inclusive Schools document has been removed from M-DCPS website, after a letter from the Department of Education was sent to the district stating that the document was not in compliance with Florida law or SBE 6A-10.086.
If your child is a student in the state of Florida, we encourage you to contact your school district and ensure that they are in compliance with the Florida State Board of Education rule 6A-10.086 and the Parents’ Bill of Rights.