A California high school suspended two children for five days last year for “misgendering” a teacher, according to a local parent group.
The “misgendering” incident reportedly occurred at Herbert Hoover High School in the Glendale Unified School District just north of Los Angeles.
The school also made the kids undergo “restorative justice” training, an email allegedly sent by former Principal Jennifer Earl on May 24, 2022, appears to show. The email was first reported this week by GUSD Parents Voices, a group that says it works to “support children’s educational goals and development” in the Glendale school district.
Glendale high school students suspended for 5 days for "misgendering" teacher, and then undergo "restorative justice (RJ)" education. Any comment on this @GlendaleUSD ?#gusdparentsvoices pic.twitter.com/RcTCLRPJRL
— GUSD Parents Voices (@gusdparents) July 5, 2023
“I suspended two students for five days each today and will be conducting RJ with students and teacher for the following,” Earl wrote in her email, according to the screenshot from GUSD Parents Voices.
“The students (not enrolled in his class) entered [the teacher’s] classroom one at a time and called him [a gender]. The teacher responded it is [a different gender identity] After doing so, they ran away. In interviewing them, they admitted to being curious about a transgender person. I asked my teacher how he wanted to handle it, if he wanted me to just teach them about misgendering or would he like me to speak about being trans. He asked me to educate on transgender. It was well received from students and parents. RJ will happen after suspension,” Earl added.
A spokesperson for the Glendale school district said a student can be suspended if using the wrong pronoun escalates to harassment.
“A student has never been punished, much less suspended, for accidentally using the wrong pronoun to refer to a peer or staff member. However, a student could be suspended if the action escalated to harassment or bullying,” a district spokesperson told Fox News.
GUSD Parents Voices said the “RJ” in the principal’s email stands for “restorative justice,” which the school district details on its website. The Glendale school district published an online “practitioner’s guide” on “Restorative Practices.”
The district’s guide says restorative justice is “a way of looking at criminal justice that emphasizes repairing the harm done to people and relationships rather than only punishing offenders.”
“Within schools, restorative justice serves as an alternative approach to traditional methods of exclusionary discipline, which often focus on punishment. Instead, restorative justice is a process involving the primary stakeholders in determining how best to repair the harm done by an offense,” the guide states.
“When there is harm or conflict within the established community, restorative responses help to repair the damage. This is done through processes that bring harmed and harmers together to address root causes of the conflict, support accountability for those responsible, and promote healing for impacted individuals. As a result, community is once again restored bringing back a sense of belonging to all,” according to the guide.
The Glendale school district recently made headlines last month when parents protested sexual curriculum content at a school board meeting, and the demonstration erupted into violence.
Three people were arrested outside the Glendale school district’s headquarters when parents concerned about sexual and LGBT curriculum content clashed with Antifa activists.
Families of kids in the district, particularly the Armenian American and Hispanic communities, planned the protest after months of demonstrating and speaking out at school board meetings. The parents called for more transparency and an end to certain LGBT curricula and policies that they say are at least completely age-inappropriate.