Administrators with the La Center School District gave testimony last week, making an argument for its policy that, after a multi-step process that includes discussions with the student, parents are notified if that student requests a name or pronoun change indicating a change in gender.
Peter RosenkranzLast month, the school district won on three counts in the case of La Center Public Schools vs. the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), most notably the district policy that teachers are not to ask or require every student to give their pronouns.
“La Center does not ask your pronouns,” said Peter Rosenkranz, the district superintendent. “(Some) teachers wanted to ask (all) kids for their pronouns. The state supported that. The judge said that we can control if (teachers) ask.”
Rosenkranz reiterated that students can be proactive and tell teachers their pronouns.
“If you want to use a different name or pronoun, you tell me,” Rosenkranz said. “I’m not going to blanket ask.”
There were five items that an Administrative Law Judge ruled on last month, with three things going the school district’s way. However, one policy was left to be decided: The district’s proactive parental notification policy.
There was a separate hearing last week that took multiple days. Closing statements from both sides are due in a matter of weeks, and then the judge has months to rule. Rosenkranz said a final decision on that matter might not come until February of 2027.
“I thought we had a fair trial,” Rosenkranz said. “We were able, through testimony and evidence, share our side of the story.”
Rosenkranz said his philosophy is that parents should be informed.
“We’re going to assume parents love their children. They deserve that. It’s their children, not mine. Families are important,” he said.
The opposing side argues that the school district should not be “outing” anyone.
Rosenkranz said if a student is going by a different gender and/or pronoun at school, that student is already “out,” at least with all the students and teachers they interact with daily. It is not the role of the school district, he said, to keep secrets from parents.
Plus, he added, it is not as if administrators are calling parents immediately. There is a multi-step process that includes interviews with the student. If administrators find there is a safety issue at home, there are other avenues.
That, by the way, has always been the case, Rosenkranz pointed out.
“If I think parents are doing something dangerous to the child, I’m bound to call law enforcement, CPS (Child Protective Services), or both,” Rosenkranz said.
That could come from a parent’s reaction to a bad test score, or an abusive parent who beats up a child, or even a negative reaction from a change in gender identity.
“There are a variety of things we see,” Rosenkranz said.
Until shown otherwise, though, Rosenkranz is going to side that parents should be informed with what is happening with their children at La Center schools.
Rosenkranz said the state seems to have the position that parents are supportive of gender identity changes and pronoun changes or they are dangerous. He does not see it that way.
The school board adopted a multi-step policy that eventually would lead to the district notifying a parent unless there were extreme circumstances.
“Whether it’s perfect or not, I do not know,” Rosenkranz said of the policy. “But the state refused to help us improve it. I asked them time and time again to collaborate with us, make it better. But we can’t leave parents out of this. They (the state) wanted to leave parents in the dark.”
This so-called “pronoun battle” has been going on for years at La Center, after some teachers went public with their disappointment in Rosenkranz’s decision to ban teachers from asking all of their students for their pronouns.
“We had people changing their pronouns all over the place. I had teachers demanding that kids must tell them their pronouns,” Rosenkranz said.
He thought he had a better plan.
“Just ask their names and the start of the school year and call it good,” he said.
He asked that his teachers focus on the main mission at La Center Schools:
“Reading, writing, math, and science,” Rosenkranz said. “That’s the key.”
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