By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Waterford Graded School District officials said this week the district will not be adding sections on transgender people and gender identity to the human growth and development curriculum at the middle school level.
That statement came in response to at least one district resident who initiated a campaign against such curriculum.
According to a Facebook post Monday, a note – signed by “Concerned Citizens of Waterford” – had been posted at a business in the village.
It read:
“On May 9th and May 23rd at 6 p.m. at Evergreen School, WGSD board will be discussing adding gender identity topics to the district’s curriculum. This is a very controversial topic right now in the news media, but many of us believe that it is a subject that should NOT be discussed by school officials in the classroom. It is a subject that should be left up to parents to discuss with their children. We NEED those who believe as we do, to come to both meetings to show the board that the citizens who elected them do NOT want this topic added to our children’s curriculum!!”
However, on Tuesday morning, Waterford Graded Superintendent Ed Brzinski said the topic would not be added to the curriculum, and the May 9 meeting is simply for Curriculum Coordinator Kathy Hoppe to report on a series of three public meetings that included discussion on gender identity.
In those meetings – the first two were, in Brzinski’s words, poorly attended, the last well attended – 26 of 34 people polled showed a pink card, which indicated they were not comfortable at all with the topic being addressed at the middle school level.
Brzinski said there are no planned changes to the curriculum at this time – not for gender identity issues, or any changes at all.
“Nobody is trying to ram anything down anyone’s throat,” said Brzinski, adding that the feedback process had gone well and that some people were trying to make an issue where there was not one.
“We’re not trying to be divisive,” he said. “We’re trying to get people involved.”
Brzinski added that he was not comfortable with how the process had been handled to this point. He has been on the job for just 10 months, replacing Christopher Joch, who resigned last year.
With Hoppe having announced her resignation in January, a new curriculum director is expected to be appointed in the near future, and Brzinski said he would work on further discussions with the new employee.
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