Hundreds of students at a southeastern Pennsylvania high school walked out of class in protest last week after the district school board voted to continue letting transgender students use whatever restrooms they want.
What are the details?
About 400 students walked out of Perkiomen High School on Friday, the Delaware Valley Journal reported. The school district is located just over an hour northwest of Philadelphia.
The board voted 5-4 Sept. 11 against a policy requiring boys and girls to use the restrooms corresponding to their biological sex, the Journal said, adding that one Republican school board member, Don Fountain, voted with Democrats against the measure.
The issue came up after a father posted on social media that his daughter believed a boy was in a girls’ restroom and she was afraid to use it, the Journal reported.
“So after a couple of days, I asked her if she noticed anything else, and she said that she just wasn’t using the bathrooms there anymore, so she doesn’t know," the father, Tim Jagger, told the Journal.
Jagger then contacted district officials, who said students were allowed to use restrooms matching their gender identity and that Jagger's 14-year-old freshman daughter could use a single-person restroom, the outlet added.
After Jagger posted about the situation on Facebook and others also were surprised, he asked the school board about it at a meeting, and several members said they had no idea it was happening, the Journal continued.
Senior Brandon Corner, 17, was among the students who walked out of class in protest, the outlet said, adding that he approached Superintendent Barbara Russell for answers.
“She didn’t answer any questions," Corner told the Journal. "For example, when I asked her to define what a transgender person is." He also asked, “What’s in place to protect the non-transgender people?” the Journal said.
His mother, Melanie Corner, added to the Journal that they aren't against LGBTQ students: “Their rights should be addressed but not at the expense of taking away the rights of the non-LGBTQ students. They shouldn’t be asked to give up their right to privacy to accommodate 12 students, especially when the school has three designated bathrooms for these students to use.”
The policy committee is scheduled to meet 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Perkiomen Valley High School media center/library.
Fox News interviewed three other students who walked out. Here's the video:
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