|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Superintendent disputes “gender neutral” characterization
By Guy Page
A Missisquoi Valley Union High School parent is objecting to the school’s recent bathroom renovations, which she says eliminated traditional boys’ and girls’ facilities in favor of one large gender-neutral restroom.
In a letter to the parent, School Superintendent Julie Regimbal denies creating “one large, gender neutral bathroom,” saying instead the renovation created “several individual, private bathrooms” – in the form of side-by-side stalls.
The school district serves the communities of Franklin, Highgate and Swanton.
In a letter sent this week to the Missisquoi Valley School District board, Principal Dan Palmer, and Regimbal, parent and taxpayer Jocelyn Reighley said she was “appalled” by the change, which she said she first learned of from her ninth-grade son.
Over the summer, the school renovated two traditional boy-girl bathrooms located next to each other into one large facility with stalls with doors, Regimbal confirmed.
Reighley wrote that the district failed to notify parents of the renovation and argued that the change undermines student privacy, safety, and modesty.
“Why would any adult even entertain the idea of putting hormonal boys and girls together in the same room for these intimate and personal moments?” she wrote. “In the not-so-distant past, this was viewed as an absolute taboo.”
Regimbal responded:
“Thank you for reaching out and sharing your concerns. I understand why you’re upset based on the information your son shared with you. I want to clarify what has actually been done regarding the bathroom renovations at MVU high school, as there seems to be a misunderstanding.
We have not created one large, gender-neutral bathroom. Instead, we have remodeled the large, multi-stall bathrooms into several individual, private bathrooms. Each new bathroom is a separate, fully-enclosed room with its own toilet and sink, offering a higher degree of privacy than the traditional large group bathrooms.
This change was made to address student privacy and safety, as well as to improve the overall student experience. The new individual bathrooms are available to all students, but they are not shared at the same time. A student enters a private bathroom, uses it, and then another student can use it after they exit. This setup eliminates the concerns you raised about boys and girls congregating in the same large space, which was a valid concern with the old layout.
I hope this information clarifies the situation. We believe these new individual bathrooms provide a safer, more private, and more comfortable environment for all of our students.”
Reighley also raised concerns about potential harassment or predatory behavior, saying younger students could feel intimidated or unsafe. She questioned whether some students might avoid using the bathroom altogether during the school day.
In addition to safety and privacy, Reighley criticized the use of tax dollars for the project, calling it “reckless and inexplicable” spending at a time when the district faces other needs.
“This issue has nothing to do with politics,” she wrote. “Instead of protecting our youth, you are intentionally placing them in a completely inappropriate situation every day at school and expecting everyone to just pretend that it is normal.”
Reighley urged the district to reverse the renovation and restore gender-specific bathrooms.
School officials have not yet publicly responded to the letter.
The gender-free bathroom construction possibly may anticipate passage of H194, “to require that any non-emergency school construction project receiving State aid include the creation of a high-capacity, gender-neutral restroom.” Sponsored by Democrat/Progressive Reps. Troy Headrick (Burlington), Emily Carris-Duncan (Windham County), Elanor Chapin (East Montpelier), Kate Logan (Burlington), Kate McCann (Montpelier), Brian Minier (South Burlington), the bill was referred to the House Education Committee this spring but proceeded no further.
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Education
Completely private stalls in a mixed male female population rest room for teenagers, what could go wrong? Oh, boy!
Watch out for the guy or trans or girl with mirror on the tops of their shoes.
From the picture this certainly appears to be what used to be a boys or girls room (as it is a large room) with wooden doors on the stalls as opposed to the standard metal doors on the stalls. Crazy, I wonder if the AOE will begin to hire “Gender Neutral Restroom Monitors” at tax payer expense.
As an aside, I never lift the seat in gender neutral bathrooms. Maybe if enough girls/women complain . . . LoL
Just so you are ware – research has been done that shows that women’s public restrooms are very often dirtier than men’s – for some obvious reasons.
Many women don’t necessarily “assume the position” you think they do in public facilities and neither do they always flush.
Women’s rooms are nasty. Try not to outdo them, please.
Anyone that suggested this and agreed with this should be terminated and removed from the school. They are pedophiles. And should be prosecuted and treated as such
Just when you think that the absolute highest bar of stupidity has been reached, someone adds another bar !
In the photo, I do not see where there is space for a sink in each individual bathroom. I see a paper towel holder on the right, and what might appear to be a sink countertop on the left. Otherwise, the design looks like many single-room “restrooms” at many public establishments. I appreciate the solid-wall construction and full size, solid doors. I assume they lock from the inside. “Vacant” and “In Use” dials preferred over the push-button locks. IMHO these stalls might be safer for young ladies, rather than allowing boys to use traditional girls’ restrooms with metal doors that offer little privacy and security. I am concerned, however, about the young man’s concern about the restroom design, so I would want to hear more from the students about why the design feels unsafe to them. While the design promotes the multiple genders narrative, students might ultimately be safer with this design. Again I challenge the statement that their are sinks in every individual bathroom. Perhaps it is the shared sinks that violate young people’s sense of modesty?
*there, not their
One safety issue I see is if there is a smaller single girl and a larger single boy in the room alone, what is preventing the larger boy from pushing the smaller girl into a “private bathroom” and locking the door?
Another scenario is it provides a “private bathroom” for conjugal visits.
Bill, same thing can happen now in a traditional girl’s restroom, maybe more so. Girls cannot go anywhere alone safely any more, including school restrooms. Unfortunately girls are going to have to travel in pairs, especially now.
Renee,
My son told me the sinks are open and public. I believe they are all located next to each other on the wall between the two doorways that open to the hall so everyone washes their hands together. Oh and PS, those exterior doorways don’t have doors. Does the school suppose they can “monitor” the bathrooms by making them doorless?
Joyclyn, first, thank you for being a Mama Bear for your son. I know it can be challenging. Well done. Thank you for confirming that there are NOT sinks in each individual stall. Superintendent Rigimbal’s statement that there are sinks in each stall contradicts the photo she submitted. I hope and pray for a satisfactory solution, which starts with firing DEI/LGBTQ school staff and legislators. We need a return to reality.
Would Tim Walz approve ????
SCHOOL CHOICE!
Democrats appear to be as obsessed with the potty even more so than are most toddlers.
Try as they might with this set-up though – nothing laps what MA. retailer “Guido’s” grocery stores did to quell the burning desire of customers who demand potty parity or whatever this is supposed to be.
In Guido’s, both sexes enter a wide-open door to a line of sinks & then one can traverse further in toward the left or right in order to choose between toilets enclosed in individual locking rooms – or to female urinals (aka “unisex urinals”) also enclosed behind fully closed & lockable individual rooms…..
As my husband emerged from the experience, he remarked what a highly odd configuration the urinal had until I informed him that they were meant for either sex to fully “enjoy” with ease.
How any of this nonsense helps foster an enhanced society toward the betterment of humankind, I’m unclear. However, apparently democrats & socialists believe that it does. Whatever. When ya gotta go, ya gotta go – it’s still superior to India’s holes in the ground.
Just when you think things can’t get more STUPID! I’m curious what the average student reading/writing/arithmetic scores are at MVU? Bring back the one room school and outhouse. Oh, yeah, and the famous paddle hanging off the chalkboard! 😆
When will it end? This is insane.
As an addendum to H 194, “boys’ room” and “girls’ room” will be replaced with the appropriately inclusive, “Comrades’ stalls”.
Of course it will be hilarious to see where they place the apostrophe.
Having a locking door that extends floor to ceiling is sure to invite, as one other commenter suggested, “conjugal activity”. Surely more than one individual can occupy that large space and engage in all kinds of school-prohibited activities such as drug sales and use, and with no time limit. When the weed smoke pervades and needles are found to be clogging up the toilets like they have for years in the restrooms of the Burlington Library, they will rethink this architectural wokeness.
This is satanic. No teenage boys and girls should never be trusted in situations like being in the restroom at the same time. Parents! Where are you? I wonder how many pregnancies will come from this? How about STDs? I hope whoever decided to do this is fired. They should never be allowed around children.
Are the adult teachers allowed to use these?
How much money was spent on this BS? And who thought it was a good idea? I can’t imagine being a teenager, in the same room with the opposite sex, waiting to use the bathroom. There is SO MUCH WRONG with this set up.
God help our children.
Money is no object when pursuing wokeness in Vermont, especially in the school system.
Gentlemen…a quick way to prevent this nonsense is to make sure you leave the seat down when you pee…all the squawking that will follow should be enough to nip this twisted policy in the bud.
Read the comment posted earlier by me – wanna see messes? Enter a woman’s restroom that hasn’t been cleaned in hours. You’ll be the one “squawking”.
And women aren’t responsible for causing this fiasco – BOTH genders have united to cause it, though in these cases – most public restrooms are still designed & engineered by males, hence the regular messes in women’s rooms.
Maybe try glancing at your old 10th grade biology textbook pics?
Good Lord……TRY getting beyond tat messy divorce…..please…….
do teachers use the same “unsex” bathrooms?? just asking. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander