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Typically, about a dozen parents attend the monthly meetings of the Somali Parent Committee for Burnsville-Eagan-Savage schools. On Monday night, amid concerns about a policy the district says is intended to protect transgender students, more than 300 were there.
The school district moved up the date of the December meeting to address community fears about the policy and what officials say is outright misinformation. The policy was approved as many schools grapple with concerns about LGBTQ mental health, and Burnsville-Eagan-Savage reels from the recent suicides of two district high school students. But Somali parents worried that the policy means schools would conceal information from them about their children.
“I’m a mother, I’m not an advocate, but I advocate for my kids,” Maryan Gutale, a mother of five district students, said in an interview. “I’m having these conversations with my daughter and talking with her about the fact that people have a different way of life than us, and that’s OK. We have our faith and beliefs, they have theirs. But for some parents, outrage is enough for them as a response.”
Attendance at Monday’s meeting was four times higher than it was at a school board listening session on the same topic, held December 8. While parents had initially questioned whether the schools would withhold information about their children’s gender identity, by Monday the concerns had ballooned to include many issues relating to the LGBTQ community. District staff fielded questions from parents for more than two hours with the help of Somali-speaking staff members. They explained current school procedures and policies to correct misinformation while explaining the reasoning behind existing policies and the importance of supporting LGBTQ students.
