State school officials say a Southwest Washington school district is violating protections for LGBTQ students with multiple policies, including its approach to preferred pronouns. The decision from the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction follows a nearly two-year investigation into district policies and directives at the La Center School District in Clark County.
The report orders La Center to make changes quickly to conform to state policy aimed at protecting transgender and gender-expansive students. It comes a month into a new federal administration that has taken an aggressive stance against what President Donald Trump calls “gender ideology.”
Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Education has shifted toward enforcing federal Title IX gender protections with a focus on the basis of biological sex. Trump has signed executive orders restricting healthcare access to gender-affirming care and barring transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. However, both Oregon and Washington have joined lawsuits against the Trump administration’s executive orders.
The conflict in La Center doesn’t involve the Trump administration, but pits state and local officials on opposite sides of an issue with trans and gender-expansive youth at the center. The state has concluded its investigation and is ordering the local school district, La Center, to come into compliance. The La Center superintendent is defiant in his response.
La Center questions Washington’s Gender-Inclusive Schools policy
Washington OSPI approved model policies to support trans and gender-expansive students in 2020, calling on school districts to ask students to provide their preferred pronouns. As described in OSPI’s investigative report into practices at La Center, Washington state policy calls for having students state their pronouns - rather than parents - and having school staff ask the student about the proper way of involving their parents.
Related: Read: La Center School District Investigation Report - OSPI Discrimination Complaint No. 23-005
OSPI said in the report, quoting from its own model procedure, “For families who are supportive, using the student’s name and pronoun could be affirming for the student. For parents who are not supportive, or who are not aware of the student’s transition at school, referring to their name and pronoun could be very dangerous.”
The state policy drew opposition in La Center, as the state investigation noted at a school board meeting in September 2022. The investigation notes an unattributed public comment objecting to students being asked to state their pronouns, saying, “Please put a policy or a resolution in place to stop teachers from pushing the pronoun garbage.” The commenter said it was a “parents’ rights” issue and was hoping the “conservative board” would address the concern.
According to minutes from the school board the next month, La Center Superintendent Peter Rosenkranz agreed that the pronoun policies warranted further discussion. By the end of October, Rosenkranz had created a new policy. It called on teachers to ask students if their name was correct as listed by the school, but students wouldn’t be asked for their pronouns - that would be up to students to bring up themselves.
“Asking for pronouns in a public setting can make some feel included and others feel excluded,” Rosenkranz said in his directive. “By just asking a student’s name, verbally or in writing, we give every student an opportunity to identify themselves on how they would like to be referred.”
But where Rosenkranz seemed to differ most strenuously with the state’s approach to pronouns was over the role of parents. While the state argued that involving family members could be “very dangerous,” Rosenkranz said he firmly believed “these conversations belong to the family.”
At least one teacher - identified in the OSPI investigation as a teacher at La Center High School and the advisor to the Gay Straight Alliance - questioned the directive from the superintendent. The teacher asked if it was okay to ask students to “Write their pronouns on a seating chart or index card on the first day of school.” The superintendent responded, “This is what I’m asking you not to do moving forward.”
In effect, Rosenkranz instituted a “Don’t ask, let them tell you” policy for teachers to follow.
Teacher objects to La Center policy, prompting investigations
By November 2022, the questions had escalated into an official complaint from the high school teacher, which argued the district’s “Pronoun Directive” created a barrier that “affects the LGBTQ community, and only the LGBTQ community.” Over the next month, an investigator hired by the district interviewed 11 people, though not any self-identified, gender-expansive students or their parents. Rosenkranz used the report to dismiss the complaint, leading to an appeal to OSPI.
In the months that followed, district staff asked more clarifying questions, including Denelle Eiesland who emailed the superintendent, asking if it was acceptable to offer students an “optional” question about “nickname, preferred name, or preferred pronoun.” Rosenkranz objected to mention of the pronoun.
“The challenge is that when we ask that question we teach,” Rosenkranz wrote back to Eiesland in an email. “We teach students to ask further questions when they don’t understand, therefore prompting pronouns with a seemingly innocent question appears to promote an agenda.”
OSPI found that La Center’s district policies differed from state guidance in multiple ways, including in communication with parents about students “who question their gender identity.” The OSPI investigation also reached beyond pronouns to look at the district’s guidance regarding curriculum and instruction. For instance, the report notes a district procedure stating, “It is not the proper role of the school to foster curriculum, instruction or activities which would reasonably be expected to lead children to question their gender identity, when no such questions existed before.”
Washington state Superintendent of Public Instruction, Chris Reykdal, speaks at a news conference,, Aug. 18, 2021, at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. A Washington OSPI report is ordering the La Center School District to make changes quickly to conform to state policy aimed at protecting transgender and gender-expansive students.
Ted S. Warren / AP
The OSPI investigation also offered evidence that the policy disagreement had real-world consequences on at least one family. It mentioned testimony from a “gender-expansive recent District graduate” who said they were “forcibly outed” by district staff, leading to “physical abuse by a family member” as well as school disruptions and negative mental health effects.
OSPI concluded La Center violated the state’s anti-discrimination policies and did so with discriminatory purpose. The state report said La Center’s policy adversely affects students’ ability to benefit from the district’s education programs. Regarding instructional practices, OSPI’s investigation found La Center’s policy “does not comply with Washington nondiscrimination laws” in that it restricts “curriculum, instruction, and activities based on gender identity, specifically gender-expansive identities” and by requiring “unprompted parental notification.”
OSPI ordered the district to rescind its own Pronoun Directive, and within 45 days demonstrate how it will come into compliance with the state’s model Gender Inclusive Schools policy. OSPI followed with related orders in the report, including a prohibition against “proactively” sharing information about a student’s gender without their consent and starting an effort to screen instructional materials for anti-transgender bias.
La Center pushes back, considers legal options
The OSPI decision was met with support by Clark County Pride, an LGBTQ community group that started in La Center. The group agreed with OSPI’s conclusions that La Center school leaders had “violated the rights of queer or questioning students, as well as state law.”
“The question now is whether Superintendent Rosenkranz and the conservative school board will continue to spend taxpayer resources to fight for their Anti-Trans policy,” the group concluded in its email publicizing OSPI’s decision.
The La Center School District responded to the OSPI report Friday, rejecting what Supt. Rosenkranz called it a “baseless claim that we have discriminated against students or families.” The statement sent to OPB goes on to call the 32-page report “an insult to our district, our educators, and the parents who support policies that prioritize both student well-being and parental rights.”
Rosenkranz lists several problems he sees with the findings, including that it requires schools to “determine whether parents are ‘dangerous’ for their children” and that it directs schools to “facilitate gender transitioning without parental involvement.” The superintendent argues OSPI is presenting “government” as the ultimate decision makers for children, “not parents.”
The La Center superintendent said the district followed state law - and improved on it by including parents. Rosenkranz says the district reached out to state officials to improve the state policy, but “they refused to collaborate.”
“We will not stand by while OSPI erodes parental authority and forces schools to act against families’ best interests,” the superintendent wrote. “La Center School District is consulting with legal counsel to determine next steps, including potential legal challenges.”