New Hanover County Board of Education discussing changes to LGBTQ policies

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY)– A policy concerning middle school transgender athletes will be back before the New Hanover County School Board after a vote during January 10th’s board meeting.

“I just think this is a backdoor attempt for you to take away the rights of transgender students, and to not provide equal opportunity for all of our students,” said Stephanie Kraybill, New Hanover County Board of Education Member.   

Kraybill didn’t mince words last week when she called out Pat Bradford’s move to rescind a motion adopted in June of 2021 that waived the first reading on Policy 3630.   

That policy reads in part “…a student participating in middle school athletics can participate on the team consistent with their gender identity…”.   

“We spend so much time going through the minutia of Roberts Rule of Order and getting things right, and that night we got it wrong, because we waived the first reading on an important thing,” said New Hanover County’s Board of Education Chair, Pat Bradford.  

Bradford is concerned that the vote happened to quickly and should have had a second reading.

But Jessica Cannon, a Volunteer Counselor with a LGBTQ teen suicide prevention organization, says undoing the vote does more harm than good.  

“They will feel ostracized, they will feel rejected, they will feel the message being sent to them by the adults is that they don’t belong. And sadly, we know that our LGBTQ youth is 5x more likely to die by suicide than their straight counterparts,” said Cannon.  

Kraybill says this could be a potential violation of Title 9’s discrimination laws.   

“The new law is unclear about athletics, but is clear that you must provide equal opportunity for all students, regardless of what your thoughts are on transgender,” said Kraybill.  

In the end, the motion to rescind the motion that waived the first reading passed 4-3, while the motion to send it back to the Policy Committee for further discussion passed 5-2.

“They took an oath to protect all of our children. Not just some of our children. I think it’s our duty to hold them accountable to that promise,” said Cannon.  

The Policy Committee is set to meet on Monday. 

The meeting agenda will be released Wednesday to confirm if Policy 3630 will be further discussed.