{"id":36428,"date":"2023-09-27T20:32:53","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T00:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=36428"},"modified":"2023-09-27T20:32:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T00:32:57","slug":"polk-county-school-leaders-consider-removing-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/09\/27\/polk-county-school-leaders-consider-removing-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County School leaders consider removing sexual orientation and gender identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Polk County School leaders are considering how to word a new discrimination policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not what\u2019s in the new policy that has some people upset, but rather the wording school leaders may leave out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a work session Tuesday, district officials talked about the new document that could soon be added to the school board manual, policy 2266, which aims to prevent gender discrimination in education programs and activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The document reads in part, \u201cthe school board does not discriminate on the basis of sex.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School board officials are considering crossing out the next line, which includes the wording, sexual orientation, and gender identity in response to new laws passed by the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are directed and\/or required due to changes in school code or state statutes,\u201d Polk Schools Superintendent Fred Heid said during the work session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Yocum, President of the Polk Teachers Association said she believes schools and teachers are being put in a bad spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead of worrying about making sure all people are included and educated and feel welcome, our school boards are having to respond to this hateful rhetoric coming from our state,\u201d Yocum said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerri McCoy, Vice President of Polk Pride said she worries about the impact it could have on LGBTQ youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey already have a hard time in schools being picked on, bullied, they get into fights, things like that. So now we\u2019re going to cross this out, we\u2019re going to let everyone know ok, now it\u2019s a free-for-all because we can discriminate against them, it doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d McCoy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The School Board declined to comment on the issue, saying it is still too early in discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More discussions are expected to be held in either October or November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polk County School leaders are considering how to word a new discrimination policy. It\u2019s not what\u2019s in the new policy that has some people upset, but rather the wording school… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[6134],"class_list":["post-36428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-schools","tag-polk-county-school-leaders-consider-removing-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}