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SHELBY — School Superintendent Tim Tarvin told a boisterous crowd last night’s board meeting had the largest attendance in over a decade. After the district gave no public notification they were allowing transgender students into opposite sex restrooms, several recent incidents occurred generating outrage. In response, over one-hundred area clergy sent a letter to Shelby school officials calling for the district to revert back to the status quo of biological restrooms. The letter appeared to motivate others to attend Monday’s meeting.
School Board President Lorie White told those in attendance, “The board must make decisions based on legal, moral, financial, and public relation considerations. We (school board) have to make decisions based on things beyond our personal convictions.” She went on to explain, “There are no plans to change the process (restrooms) now….We want to work with your cisgender students as well as our transgender students.”
All eight persons speaking during public comment spoke in favor of biological restrooms; they recommended transgender students use single-unit unisex restrooms. When asked by the crowd why School Administration could not require transgender students to use three unisex restrooms in the school, there was no response. After the pause, Superintendent Tarvin advised the agitated crowd that public comment time does not involve discussion. However, much of the public comment time included back and forth dialogue between board members and attendees.
Comments made by citizens with grandchildren and children in the district expressed general anxiety over the privacy and safety concerns involving female students like the 2021 rape of a female student in Loudoun County, Virginia. Citizens also alluded to the Shelby incident where a transgender biological boy grabbed a female student in the school girls’ restroom. Two different parents stated they were unwilling to have their children use school restrooms.
One twelve year-old female student told the board “I do not want to walk into a restroom and be scared about who I will see in there. Girls spend more time in the restroom and are more vulnerable.”
Bishop Anthony Cooper commented, “Being politically correct is not always correct; there is agenda behind politics. We need answers, if you cannot protect the security and privacy of our students, I am calling for you (board members) to resign. We could easily get the churches to start another school and take our kids out of Shelby schools. This is our town too.”
“Being politically correct is not always correct; there is agenda behind politics. We need answers, if you cannot protect the security and privacy of our students, I am calling for you (board members) to resign. We could easily get the churches to start another school and take our kids out of Shelby schools. This is our town too.”
Bishop Anthony Cooper
Board Member Carl Ridenour shot back, “What all of you are asking us (board) to do is ignore laws!” Several in attendance shouted back “Which law?”
Both school board seats occupied by White and Ridenour are up for election this coming November 2023. Board Member Kim Nadolsky publicly gave her support for biological restrooms.
According to Pastor Brad Gentille who attended the meeting: “The national average for transgenderism is .3%. What is concerning to me is, in a nation under God, God’s gender assignment is being usurped by children who are early in the process of learning to make wise choices; and adults are actually acquiescing their parental and school authority to these children!
“Also very compelling from a legal risk perspective is that 99.7% of the students in any given school district are being subjected to fear, inappropriate exposure, and risk of harm from the “gender choices” of .3% of the school population. This restroom issue carries with it a huge legal liability from the 99.7% of students and their parents who are not transgender in any school system deciding to allow trans children to choose the restroom of their “gender identity.” Ultimately the government and these school systems are thumbing their nose at God.”
(Photo courtesy of Frontlines Ohio)
While Superintendent Tarvin read aloud the only voice of support for gender-identity restrooms in a letter from City Councilman Garland Gates, Tarvin did not read the clergy letter supporting biological restrooms. Nine of those pastors were present during the meeting.
After the meeting, Tarvin discussed a court opinion involving a U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2016 decision. According to Tarvin, the district is basing its policy on Jane Doe v. Highland School District, where the Sixth Circuit ordered Highland Local Schools to allow an eleven year-old biological boy identifying as a girl to have access to girls’ restrooms.
Since the 2016 Court ruling, the Sixth Circuit Court has had a makeover, with President Trump filling six vacancies making it a 10-7 conservative majority.
Bishop Cooper responded, “Either the school district can do what is right and reinstitute biological restrooms or the district can face dropping enrollment and declining public support.”
The Bottom Line:
The Bible says in Second Timothy, “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and sound mind.”
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