When School Boards Fail Our Community

Earlier this month, as Frisco Pride and others worked to host FantastiQUE (a masquerade-style dance for high-school aged LGBTQ+ youth and their friends), I sought to post details of this dance to the Frisco ISD Community Notice Board. The post was an advert, similar to many other postings on the community notice board.

The advert did not include any people, and aimed to generate awareness for the many LGBTQ+ youth and their friends who attend Frisco ISD. It was intended to be a dance. Simple. A space where kids who go to school in our area, could come to an event that was safe, supportive and welcoming. As a side note, I’ve served on the Legislative Leadership Committee (part of the Frisco ISD’s attempt to engage the community), and we discussed the attacks on our LGBTQ+ youth a number of times, and I was led to believe that the schools were doing their best to minimize the impact of the hatred towards our youth by our state legislators and officers.

I think the ISD failed. Here is their response (through a staff member) to my request:

Mr. Nunn,

My team received your request to add the Frisco Pride flyer to the Frisco ISD Community Folder.

Due to recent state legislation (Texas Senate Bill 12), we are unable to share or promote LGBTQ+ content on our website. This law places specific restrictions on how certain content can be displayed within our school district. The language of SB12 is very broad leaving districts like Frisco ISD with questions about what is lawful and what is not. Frisco ISD and other school districts have requested clarity from the Texas Education Agency and have not yet received clarification. At this time, Frisco ISD cannot post or share your flyer due to concerns that doing so might be unlawful. If we receive clarity from the Texas Education Agency that changes this stance, we will re-evaluate future requests.

So, to clarify, the image did not, and did not intend, to promote LGBTQ+ content, it was an ad for a dance … for some of their students. The dance was not a recruiting event to increase the number of gay kids in the community, but aimed to provide a space for some of our community’s kids to have a dance, in a safe, welcoming and supportive way.

My response was simple … fix this.

Hey Board,

Always great to receive these kinds of notes from our ISD when all Frisco Pride is trying to do is provide a safe and welcoming space for our students who have been the victims of attacks by legislative bullies, and policies like this. I’ve served on a couple of FISD committees (most recently the Legislative Leadership Committee) and highlighted this VERY concern a number of times, and voila – here we are.

The current ISD posting guidelines will allow for predators to post in the community folder system, but not a community organization that has been working in Frisco for over 20 years that aims to help promote a healthy, safe and accepting environment for the very kids that your kinds of policies help propagate.

Fix this. Please do something or close off the community folder system to everyone until you can sort this out.

This is so infuriating. I have spoken to nearly all of you individually over the years on many LGBTQ+ issues, and many of you have welcomed the support my community has given you when you have been facing the voters. You have all “said” the right thing when we have talked about LGBTQ+ students, and now is the time to put those words into action.

Okay, I may have said it with more words than just “fix this”, but you get the idea.

And here is the (not) surpising part. They simply just ignored this request.

In the past, when I have reached out to the board on an issue, I have always been fortunate to get a response. The response was not always what I wanted to hear, but there were individuals on this elected board, that believed every person who took the time to write to the board, deserved a response. This is not the case with this current board. Actions speak volumes, especially as I waited for close to a month to get a response, after I sent a nudge.

The response came from their superintendent:

Mr. Nunn,

I refer you back to Ms. Sine’s original response to you:

“Due to recent state legislation (Texas Senate Bill 12), we are unable to share or promote LGBTQ+ content on our website. This law places specific restrictions on how certain content can be displayed within our school district. The language of SB12 is very broad leaving districts like Frisco ISD with questions about what is lawful and what is not. Frisco ISD and other school districts have requested clarity from the Texas Education Agency and have not yet received clarification. At this time, Frisco ISD cannot post or share your flyer due to concerns that doing so might be unlawful. If we receive clarity from the Texas Education Agency that changes this stance, we will re-evaluate future requests.”

We have nothing further at this time. If we do receive additional guidance from TEA, we will, as Ms. Sine stated, reevaluate future requests.

Thank you for your email.

Mike Waldrip

Also nice to get staff responding to things, but this was not the norm, and it certainly didn’t really do much in providing a response as to what they were going to do to level the playing field when it came to helping some of their students, who they probably don’t know who they are, or their name; and even if they did, they would call them whatever the state tells them to call them, rather than their chosen name. Because, the last thing the ISD Board of Trustees want to do, is upset anyone, apart from their constituents.

So, adding the current board to my #ShitList. I regret the large amounts of money we have given to these trustees for their campaigns, the support we have provided to help get the “better”. the “fairer” and the ones who “wanted” our students to thrive at their campuses. I don’t live in Frisco anymore, but I will do my best to share the reason why these people, for whichever elected office they decide to run for, do not deserve the support of anyone from the LGBTQ+ community. They are the same as the people we tried to keep out of office, so let’s just let this ride its course with those people, rather than the current ones that hide behind words.

And to those that did finally reach out, this is not action, is it a “reaction.”