VANCOUVER—The Richmond school board has passed a policy meant to make schools a safer place for people of all gender identities and sexual orientations, making it the last district in Metro Vancouver to adopt such a policy.

School districts across the province have been increasingly implementing sexual orientation and gender identity policies since the B.C. Human Rights Code changed to include protections for trans and gender-diverse people in 2016.

The motion, which passed with six in favour and one opposed at a Richmond School District board meeting on June 27, comes a year and a half after a group of Richmond students presented a petition to the board demanding the policy. It was signed by more than 1,000 students.

Reached by phone the day after the motion passed, Richmond school board trustee Sandra Nixon said she’s full of emotion.

“I'm feeling a huge sense of relief on behalf of all the students and staff and family that we're aiming to help and support with this policy,” she said.

Nixon, who is serving her first term on the board, helped create the policy.

The meeting was held at a Richmond’s J.N. Burnett Secondary School gymnasium, and Liz Baverstock, president of the Richmond Teachers’ Association, said she estimates that about 400 people attended. During the discussion period before the vote, some audience members spoke publicly in favour of the policy and shared their stories of adversity, she said, while some opposed the policy saying there hadn’t been enough consultation with parents or that it was unnecessary to have a stand-alone policy.

The 20-page-long policy outlines the district’s philosophy on sexual orientation and gender identity, and includes a commitment to including “positive images and accurate information about history and culture that reflects the accomplishment and contributions of LGBTQ+ people.”

It also says students have a right to be addressed by their preferred gender pronouns and schools should not require a student legally change their name in order to have their preferred name show up on school records.

Glen Hansman, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation said he’s pleased the motion passed and said more than 50 of B.C.’s 60 school districts have adopted specific sexual identity and gender orientation policies. Richmond, he said, is the last “large” school district in the province to adopt such a policy.

“I remember talking about this 10 years ago when there were only like three or four (districts who had passed these policies), and it was like OK, how do we go all the way?” Hansman said.

Since then, the Ministry of Education has created recommendations on what sexual orientation and gender identity policies should include, and it has also funded a non-profit called the ARC Foundation to help schools incorporate learning around diverse gender orientations and sexual identities.

But, the change is also dependent on the political views of those on a district’s school board, Hansman said.

“Things like this are always guided by school board politics ... slowly but surely the majority of trustees in Richmond have come alongside,” he said.

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Going forward, Nixon says the next steps will include comprehensive LGBTQ-sensitivity training for teachers and staff, and to strike an advisory board that will monitor the district’s implementation of the policy.

“It’s taken a while for us to come to a policy,” she said, but “the policy really has come into effect to support all that’s already happening in our schools and to hold everyone accountable for maintaining those expectations.”

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