Transgender issues raise questions at school board

At Tuesday’s Havre Public School Board of Trustees meeting at Havre Middle School, concerns over how to deal with possible future situations involving a transgender student playing for a school sports team were voiced.

Dennis Murphy, the activities director at Havre High School, presented four proposals, one addressing the transgender topic, and a budget that will be presented to the Montana High School Association at their annual meeting.

The first proposal would partner the Havre Public School District with the MHSA in the case that a transgender student wants to play for a team comprised of a gender the students formerly was not identified by.

With the proposal, said student, if he or she wanted to play for that team, would have to submit medical records to MHSA that prove that they are on the path to switch genders.

Murphy emphasized that this would not allow students to fake a gender switch so they could flip-flop between traditionally male-oriented sports and traditionally female-oriented sports. The system would not allow it.

There are no such instances in Havre currently, but if a student were to attempt this, the district would be on its own to make the decision and could be considered to have discriminated. The MHSA would act as a safe-guard against this, according to Murphy.

Every school district in Montana, save Missoula, is conducting themselves under these rules, making Montana one of 13 states that does not have a policy like this. Murphy said this would help bring Montana up to par with most of the nation.

Trustee Ed Hill expressed concern over the proposal and said he thinks that this would encourage gender identity confusions.

The proposal, along with others, passed 5 to 1, with Hill against it.

The school board also allowed a flute player to travel out of state to the National Association for Music Educators All-Northwest Music Conference. Dave Johnke, the band director at the high school, said this is the first time a Havre student has been accepted to go to the conference.

Superintendent Andy Carlson gave a presentation of the construction projects at Sunnyside Intermediate School and Havre High School. He played a video of the state of the project for the trustees to show that progress is being made. The video is available on the school district’s website for anyone who would like to watch it.

“We’re not anywhere near the timelines,” Carlson said about the lateness of the projects’ completions. He added that he does not want to give the trustees an estimated time of completion due to his being fooled before.

The trustees and Carlson expressed dissatisfaction about the construction company that is taking care of the projects.

“It’s beyond frustration,” Carlson said and then assured the trustees that though the construction crews are proceeding at a lagging rate, the engineers are making sure they do a good job.