Regional School Unit 24, which provides education to children in Hancock and Washington counties, has revoked a policy aimed at providing protections for transgender students
The policy, which the RSU 24 board adopted in 2019, allowed students to use restrooms of genders they identified with and discouraged administrators from adopting or engaging in gender-specific policies, practices or activities unless it is for “an important education purpose,” according to information posted on Facebook by state Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham. Faulkingham lives in Winter Harbor, which is a member town of RSU 24.
Faulkingham posted that the policy, which he said also included recognizing a student’s gender regardless of whether their parents approved, was repealed Tuesday by a 7-1 vote by the board.
“I applaud and support the board’s courage and action on this matter,” Faulkingham wrote.
Jack Haycock, a transgender graduate of the district’s high school, said they were “profoundly disappointed” in the school board’s decision.
Haycock said they helped found the high school’s first gay-straight alliance student group in the mid-2000s, but they and others still were subjected to bullying and harassment from other students.
“It is my fear that today, the students at Sumner have even less support than we did back in the mid-2000s,” Haycock said, referring to the district’s grade 6-12 school. “Rather than upholding their legal obligations under Maine law, the board chose to allow their own beliefs, advice from outside legal counsel sought by individual board members, and those loud, bigoted voices from our communities to carry the day.”
According to Haycock, Terry Noyes of Sorrento was the lone member of the board to vote Tuesday for keeping the policy.
The vote on Tuesday night came amid a raging debate across Maine and the country about the rights for transgender students.
At least one other Maine school district, RSU 40 in the midcoast, voted to end a similar policy last year before reinstating it. While Maine law prohibits discrimination against transgender people, advocates say that the local policies can help school staff to follow the law and best support transgender students.
But conservatives have pushed back against some of those local policies, arguing that parents should be more involved than schools when it comes to the gender of their children. More recently, they have also opposed Maine policies that allow transgender students to compete in sports aligning with their gender, as the Trump administration sues the state over those rules.
Another district in Aroostook County, MSAD 70 in Hodgdon, recently voted to side with the Trump administration and only recognize two sexes of students, which could lead to preventing transgender students from playing sports.
In RSU 24, Superintendent Michael Eastman and Jeff Alley, Jr., chair of its board, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning.
The vote is not the first time the district has drawn scrutiny for its treatment of transgender ot LGBTQ+ issues.
In 2023, some parents and residents in the district urged the board to take action concerning two LGBTQ+ books in the library of Sumner School, which has students in grades 6-12. The board later voted to keep the books in the library, but with some restrictions on which grades can access them.