Here’s what KCK parents say about Kansas lawmaker targeting schools for trans policies
When Sarah Oltvedt’s child first said they wanted to be referred to using she/her pronouns, their first grade teacher reached out and had a conversation with Oltvedt about it.
And throughout the years, as her daughter’s identity has developed, Oltvedt said that staff, social workers and counselors at Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools have continued to check in to make sure she was in the loop.
The district provided accommodations. It checked in to help squash any potential bullying. And it allowed Oltvedt’s daughter to focus on the whole point of going to school.
To learn.
“It was always met with support from the school district, and it wasn’t the school district deciding that was what they were going to call my kid,” Oltvedt said.
Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools
That experience within the district, and others, starkly contrasted with the reasons why a top Kansas lawmaker is allegedly investigating Wyandotte County’s largest school district.
Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican who’s running for governor, is calling for an investigation into KCKPS’ practices surrounding its transgender students.
Masterson, in a statement last Wednesday, announced he was going after the school district for allegedly helping students transition genders and keeping that information from parents. And he’s called on the state attorney general’s office to support that investigation, according to the statement.
Masterson credited the move to a video published on social media by the Libs of TikTok account.
In that video, the account holder says that a whistleblower from within the school district released clips of staff saying that they were looking for loopholes to keep from disclosing to parents when a student wants to transition genders. It also shows some staff members saying that the district doesn’t have a written policy surrounding transgender students, but that it does have internal guidelines that are not shared with the public.
One clip of that video, which a resident also played during last Tuesday’s school board meeting, showed a district employee telling other staff about how a student came out to them as gay. In the video, that employee then says that the student didn’t plan to tell their parents because their father was a pastor, which some social media critics are saying is proof that the district is keeping the truth from parents.
“Parents, not bureaucrats, raise their children,” Masterson said in the release. “These officials got caught on camera plotting to deceive moms and dads about their own kids. It’s deceitful, it may be illegal and it demands a look.”
Meanwhile, the district and some parents have said that school staff are following the law.
“KCKPS continues to act in good faith and in full compliance with all applicable federal and state laws,” the school district said in a statement Monday. “The district remains committed to fostering a safe and supportive learning environment where every student can thrive.”
State, federal action
Masterson has also been among the lawmakers leading the anti-diversity, equity and inclusion charge within the Kansas Legislature. He supported policies limiting gender affirming care for minors, determining where people can and cannot use the bathroom and disallowing transgender students from participating in school sports.
This is all coming two months after the U.S. Department of Education said that KCKPS, Olathe Public Schools, Shawnee Mission School District and Topeka Public Schools had gender-inclusive policies that violated federal law.
The department also threatened to revoke those districts’ federal funding if they didn’t change those policies.
KCKPS at the time said it disagreed with the ruling, adding it was not based in fact or law.
‘It felt like a dialogue’
Oltvedt’s daughter attended Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools from kindergarten through seventh grade. She recently moved to a new school district for an unrelated matter.
But throughout her time at KCKPS, Oltvedt’s daughter had the ability to decide what pronouns she wanted to use based on how she was feeling about her identity at different times in elementary and middle school, her mother said.
And any time Oltvedt’s daughter vocalized to adults at school about how she wanted to express her gender identity, a social worker or school counselor always followed up, Oltvedt said. She was always aware of what was going on with her child, and she never felt anything was hidden for her.
“It felt like a dialogue, which it should be,” she said, adding that she has no complaints about the time her daughter was in the school district.
And she never felt like her child was singled out or given special privileges.
Oltvedt also recognizes those conversations between teachers and parents can be different when a child is scared to tell their parents about their gender identity, or if parents respond negatively to that information when it is shared with them.
But, in her experience, she found it to be a very transparent process.
“If you have concerns about what’s going on with kids, you talk to the parents about it,” Oltvedt said.
An overreaction?
Amanda DeVriese-Sebilla, a district parent who also attended KCKPS herself, said she thinks Masterson’s call for an investigation is an overreaction. And, she said, if a child feels safe telling their parents about their identity, they’ll do it on their own.
“If parents have a connection with their children and their children trust them, then they shouldn’t have to deal with this issue in the first place,” she said.
DeVriese-Sebilla hasn’t seen any evidence of what Masterson is alleging, and she said that staff at her son’s campus are always communicative of any issue that comes up at school.
And, she said, there are plenty of other concerns ongoing in the school district that should be taking priority over this matter. DeVriese-Sebilla is worried about district spending, state funding for public education, toxic work environments that make it hard for teachers to do their job and concerning leadership choices within the special education program that her son is enrolled in, she said.
DeVriese-Sebilla sees this situation as another example of efforts from the Trump Administration and other politicians to attack minorities, whether that be people of color or people who are LGBTQ+.
She called it “flat-out bullying.”
