The Murrieta Valley Unified School District will not enact its controversial “forced outing policy” after the California Department of Education found that it violated education codes.
The district informed staff, students and families of the reversal in a letter sent out Friday. Approved by the district’s school board in August, the policy would have required employees to notify students’ families if they identified as transgender.
According to the Press Enterprise, the school board voted last month to keep the policy, but the state had other plans in mind. The newspaper reports that a district spokesperson claimed the policy hadn’t yet been enforced.
In its findings released last week, the Department of Education said the policy “singles out and is directed exclusively toward one group of students based on that group’s legally protected characteristics of identifying with or expressing a gender other than that identified at birth.”
The department said policy provided no educational or administrative purpose that could justify the discrimination of LGBT+ students.
Two teachers within the district, Jamie Goebel and Karen Poznanski, filed the complaint that led to the department’s investigation into the policy.
Other Southern California school districts, such as those in Chino Valley, Temecula and Orange have approved similar policies in recent years. The Chino Valley and Temecula policies have been challenged in pending court cases.