When teachers call students by name in the classroom, that’s a “formal” use of their name, on par with the name they have recorded in online records and report cards. That’s how Education Minister Bill Hogan has defined the term in a newly revised Policy 713 on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Informal use of names, according to Hogan and the Department of Education, happens only in social interactions outside of the classroom.
The new definition means that the province’s newly revised Policy 713 now explicitly requires teachers to get parental consent before using the preferred name of students aged 15 and younger. The previous version appeared to remove the requirement for teachers to use preferred names for students under 16, but did not restrict them from doing so.
Hogan’s definition of formal name use lies in contrast to how Kelly Lamrock, the province’s Child and Youth Advocate, defined use of names in his report on Policy 713 published last week. Lamrock describes informal use of names as including “classroom communication, extracurricular and co-curricular activities, free time, and social conversation,” and he contrasts those informal uses to official school uses such as online records and report cards.
Lamrock has heavily criticized Policy 713 for creating rules around use of names for trans and genderqueer students that do not apply to other groups. Essentially, the youth advocate says the revised policy is discriminatory, and his recommendations include a thorough rewrite of the policy’s section on self-identification, which would allow for kids in grade six and older to request preferred names without parental consent, but also would not allow teachers to lie to parents.
In a short media scrum on Wednesday, Hogan introduced three relatively small changes to the policy: defining use of names in the classroom as ‘formal’, allowing guidance counsellors, psychologists and social workers to freely use preferred names, and removing the mandatory requirement for kids who chose not to inform their parents of their preferred name to seek counselling support in the school. Logan told reporters the changes would address all of the concerns raised in Lamrock’s 97-page report on the policy.
‘Deeply, deeply disappointed’
It’s fair to say that Anglophone East District Education Council (DEC) member Kristin Cavoukian thinks that’s just not true.
“I am deeply, deeply disappointed in what the government’s response has been to Kelly Lamrock’s thoughtful review,” says Cavoukian. “This was an opportunity for the government to actually seriously consider the safety and insecurity of students in our schools and consider the true ramifications of what it was proposing.”
Cavoukian describes Hogan’s response as a “gotcha move” and a “clever rewording of formal to now include classroom use.”
“Formal used to mean things like someone’s transcript or report cards having their preferred name on them,” says Cavoukian. The original Policy 713 made that distinction, requiring parental consent for name changes on official or formal documents. “And now this new, rewritten document seems to expand the term ‘formal’ to include classroom use,” says Cavoukian, “as if that takes care of the problem.”
“Words have meanings,” says Cavoukian. “And this government can’t single handedly change the generally accepted meaning of a word.” More importantly, says Cavoukian, “this also does nothing to change the discriminatory aspect of the policy.”
Lamrock’s report illustrates a number of scenarios where alternative names or nicknames are used by teachers, with no regulation involved. “We call people what they would like to be called,” says Cavoukian. “But you won’t do this for non-binary and trans folks. That is discriminatory… The kind of clever re-definition of ‘formal’ does nothing to change that illegality.”
Did provincial lawyers vet new policy?
On Wednesday, Hogan did not answer a reporter’s question about whether or not provincial lawyers had vetted his revised Policy 713 for potential conflicts with other laws, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The same question to Hogan’s communications team via email also came up empty. But it appears Hogan is ready for a possible legal challenge. “In any act that we bring forward,” said Hogan, “there’s always the possibility that parts can be challenged.”
In June, shortly after the government first announced its Policy 713 changes, a number of DECs in the province (including Anglophone East) passed motions that effectively brought back some of the original protections in the policy, such as the requirement for teachers to use kids’ preferred names regardless of age and parental consent. Hogan said Wednesday that provincial policy should prevail over DEC policies.
“Should [DECs] choose to go forward with what they proposed, we will take it on a district by district basis,” said Hogan.
“He was the one who empowered us to add to his motion in the first place,” says Cavoukian. Section 8 of Policy 713 says that DECs “may develop policies and procedures that are consistent with, or more comprehensive than, this provincial policy.”
Cavoukian says the Anglophone East DEC had planned a meeting for Thursday, August 24 to discuss the Lamrock report, and now that agenda will no doubt include Hogan’s latest changes.
“Kelly Lamrock’s review was very helpful in pointing out the sorts of safety that we want to ensure for our students that weren’t actually there in our motion,” says Cavoukian. “It is a much more comprehensive and thoughtful review that he has done. And certainly I think the things that he’s proposing are things that we need to think about and discuss as a group and decide upon.”
Cavoukian says that any further changes to the Anglophone East district policies will be made and posted on the Anglophone East website before Labour Day.
