ASHBURN, Virginia (LifeSiteNews) — The Loudoun County School Board (LCSB) recently heard recurring themes of safety concerns during an update on a bathroom safety project launched amid the district’s “transgender” rape scandal in 2021.
On Tuesday, LCSB was provided details on the Department of Support Services Safety and Privacy Restroom Study. The project began in fall 2021, just after the district adopted a school policy allowing gender-confused students to use the bathrooms of their choice. By October of that year, two female students had been sexually assaulted by the same “gender fluid” male student at two different schools. Safety concerns among students and parents in the county have been on high alert ever since.
According to feedback collected from principals of elementary, middle, and high schools in Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS), the main “challenges in school settings” include “student safety, student behavior, student privacy, supervision, teachers’ hesitance to intervene, [and] standardized policies and procedures for administrators.”
This information was gathered through numerous meetings conducted between July 2021 and June 2022. Last September, the project team conducted an email survey among school principals with “questions regarding restrooms [and] locker rooms,” among others. The feedback received pointed once again to “concerns about safety of single user restrooms for students” as well as “very low utilization of showers in locker rooms (generally),” presumably due to additional safety concerns.
Proposed plans to address safety concerns in private facilities include the “gain of 3 single-user toilet rooms” and “improved visibility from corridor for student restrooms.”
The team shared plans to “finish [the] design phase” of the “Schedule Proposed Construction Pilot Program” this spring and complete construction between the summer and fall of this year. Additionally, there will be a “student feedback group” organized by the principal of the pilot school. Feedback will be assessed for necessary adjustments. “Alignment of standardized policies and procedures for school administrators, restroom supervision, [and] locker room supervision” are also listed as steps to be taken in the coming months.
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who defeated his opponent Democrat Terry McAuliffe with a strong campaign focused on parental rights, introduced updated model policies for schools in September that would require adherence to one’s biological sex regarding the use of pronouns, bathrooms, locker rooms, and participation on sports teams. The proposal and public comments are currently under review by the Virginia Department of Education and will go into effect when finalized by the public instruction superintendent.
For the time being, school policies enabling cross-dressing students to enter private facilities of the opposite sex remain in place, and the study being conducted in LCPS continues to adhere to the policy adopted in accordance with former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s 2021 model policies.
Despite his consistent opposition to gender ideology, Youngkin sparked controversy last week when he appeared to express support for the LGBT agenda, telling a gender-confused high schooler that he believed Virginia schools needed “more gender neutral” bathrooms.
However, as scandal unraveled in Loudoun County, Youngkin’s administration proved dedicated to investigating questionable actions of school officials and protecting Virginia students from the negative impact of pro-LGBT policies. In January 2022, newly elected Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares launched an investigation to determine whether LCPS staff and administrators bore responsibility for the two girls being assaulted by a gender-confused boy.
After a special grand jury — appointed by Miyares — released a report that found school officials “failed at every juncture” in their response to the rape scandal, LCSB unanimously voted to fire the district’s superintendent, Scott Ziegler, who at one point denied that the assaults had ever taken place in Loudoun County schools. Shortly after, he was indicted on three misdemeanor charges and faces up to a year in prison. A felony perjury charge was also dealt to Public Information Officer Wayde Byard, which could bring a 10-year prison sentence.
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