A St. Paul couple who alleged that Nova Classical Academy failed to protect their child from persistent gender-based bullying and hostility has reached a $120,000 settlement with the St. Paul charter school.

The settlement comes three months after the St. Paul Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity found probable cause that Nova violated the city’s human rights ordinance and issued a right-to-sue letter to the couple, Hannah and David Edwards.

The finding gave the Edwardses the right to bring a civil lawsuit against the school under the ordinance. The couple also could have sued under the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Nova will pay damages of $120,000 to Hannah and David Edwards and their 7-year-old child, H., and revise its policies and practices to support its transgender and gender-nonconforming students. In return, the Edwardses agree not to sue the school.

The Edwardses withdrew their child from Nova in February 2016, after parents complained about the school’s efforts to support H.

A month later, they filed a complaint with the city’s human rights department, claiming that Nova violated state and local law by failing to prevent bullying of H., a then-kindergartener who was born a boy but presents as a girl.

“We’re most happy with the non-monetary terms,” David Edwards said Tuesday. “We were able to get … Nova to clearly define their policies to prevent the school from discriminating against another child the way they discriminated against (H).”

Added Hannah Edwards: “Even though (Nova) had adopted a gender-inclusion policy, it still had lots of holes in it, and those holes were ones that were directly tied to how she was discriminated against. It was very important to us to make it clear that they had to fix that. The fact that they did is amazing.”

The policy changes at Nova are already underway, the Edwardses say. For example, the school-uniform policy has been updated to remove gender categorization of the clothing options.

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Officials with the nonprofit legal aid organization Gender Justice, which represented the Edwardses in the case, called the settlement “a victory for trans- and gender-nonconforming children at Nova, and it clarifies for school leaders what it looks like to create an authentically supportive environment for all kids.”

The Edwardses’ experience shows what can happen “if a school caters more to the parent community than to a child’s human rights,” David Edwards said.

“It’s easier and safer to have policies in place from the beginning than to adopt policies in the midst of an individual situation like Nova did, inviting publicity and controversy that led to harm to the community, to our family, and to their school,” he said.

Edwards said Nova’s new policies closely align with a new “tool kit” approved July 19 by Minnesota’s School Safety Technical Assistance Council. The 11-page document is designed to help schools provide safety and support for transgender and gender-nonconforming students.

“A lot of the reason we wanted to continue with our human-rights charge and then eventually settling was so that other schools could see what to do to avoid the kind of experience that everyone had at Nova,” he said. “If other schools are looking to prevent some of the negative attention and financial settlement, they have this tool kit available to them.”

Gender Justice attorneys will receive one-third of the settlement, or $40,000. The Edwardses said they will take a small amount and put the rest into a trust for H. to receive after she becomes an adult.

The child was the subject of a lengthy feature in the Pioneer Press in June 2016.

H., who will be a second-grader at a St. Paul school, loves drawing, singing and dancing, Hannah Edwards said. She attended drama camp this summer. She can’t wait to see Lady Gaga concert at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Aug. 21.

“She tells every person that she meets that she’s going to go to Lady Gaga,” Hannah Edwards said. “She has this dream that she’s going to get to run up on stage and meet her. I keep trying to tell her, ‘No, that’s not really how it works. There are thousands of people at her concerts.’ ”