Non-discrimination policies

Dear Ms. Raih:
I’m working to gather the documents for you (I’m the only one here who handles public records requests). To be honest, your request couldn’t have come at a worse time, simply because all of the department’s directors are on a two-week post-legislative tour of the districts, and a lot of their staff are gone attending conferences. Still, I’m getting a nice little collection together of documents I can find. But this is a rather large request with a broad sweep, so it’s taking me some time to make sure I don’t miss anything. However, I also am in the process of trying to estimate the cost of producing all the memos, e-mails, etc., related to the several subject areas you’re requesting, which will require a lot of programmers’ and computer time. That’s usually a little pricey and takes a lot of work to produce. You’ll be getting an official letter later today with the time and cost estimates to fully comply. Because searches like that often generate a lot of false positives, it can potentially mean I have to go through thousands of e-mails to find the hundreds that are responsive. It takes time and I have to work that in among all the other (usually simpler) records requests I get.
Understand, I spent 45 years as a working journalist, including 25 as a managing editor, and there is a culture of transparency here at the SDE that I find refreshing in government. Unless it’s prohibited by law, people get what they ask for here, at least to the best of our ability to do so, and as soon as we can produce it.
We launched a bullying initiative this year, but it’s not specifically aimed at protecting any special group, type or class of students, rather any student who is bullied for any reason. I’ll have more on that subject when the director gets back from the tour and his staff gets back from a major conference we sponsor each year on school safety, which includes speakers addressing issues such as bullying, self-esteem, suicide prevention, etc.
As some general background…
Idaho is a local control state. Policy making is usually reserved for local school boards. Unless directed to do so by the legislature, the State Department of Education generally does not develop policies for districts to use or consider. In fact, a few districts had already adopted LGBT accommodation issues prior to the Obama and Trump letters, and several others soon adopted policies, many using as a basic template a model policy developed by the Idaho School Boards Association. But we don’t collect those district policies. You’d have to ask each of them, individually. We do, however, adopt federal non-discrimination guidelines at the SDE and the districts have to comply as well if they are to receive any federal funds. We also just got through with a major content standards review, including the health standards, but I’ve checked and there were no public comments received related to discrimination issues (our sex education portion of the content standards are pretty bland – again, local districts have primary responsibility for the curriculum they use – and the battles over that were fought out years ago, anyway).
So, in answer to your question, I’m working on it. But I hope you realize that you have asked for a lot of man-hours to be expended trying to comply as fully as possible and in a small department like ours, I’m pretty much it. But I’ll do my best for you.
Kelly Everitt
Idaho State Department of Education
Communications specialist
(208) 332-6818
keveritt@sde.idaho.gov<mailto:keveritt@sde.idaho.gov>

“Supporting Schools and Students to Achieve”

Yes, that will help. The dear colleague letter material should be relatively easy to identify and produce.
My main concern involves the e-mail searches for the other items, which have the potential to be voluminous, largely because we launched a bullying initiative this year and because this was the first year the legislature required districts to report bullying activity and I suspect there was some significant correspondence back and forth about how to fill out the reports. I’d have a better idea if the Student Engagement programs director were here, but by e-mail he’s already suggested some additional keywords that we should probably use, beyond the ones we were initially looking at.
Broad e-mail, letter and memo searches usually cost us some serious staff time so I’m running potential costs past our attorney to see what she believes we can reasonably justify. I’ll get back to you later today on that.
Kelly
(just as an FYI, I’m a Mr., not a Ms. – don’t be embarrassed, people make the mistake all the time and I’m used to it).

Dear Ms. Raih:
This is unusual but what I'd like to do is functionally split your request (see the attached letter) into all the documents that won't require an e-mail search, and those that will. Although the non-e-mail portion will take some not insignificant staff time, I'd like to be able to fulfill as much of your request as we can before we get to the e-mail portion, for which I am going to have to ask that you cover our estimated costs for that portion of your request.
Kelly Everitt
Idaho State Department of Education
Communications specialist
(208) 332-6818
keveritt@sde.idaho.gov<mailto:keveritt@sde.idaho.gov>

"Supporting Schools and Students to Achieve"

Dear Ms. Raih:

I promised I'd get everything to you we had other than the e-mail/hard-copy memo search.

The State Department of Education is primarily responsible for executing K-12 policies and programs adopted by the legislature and the State Board of Education. But Idaho is a local control state, with a great deal of policy making and decision making left to local school boards.
We adhere to federal laws and guidelines on LGBT issues but policies such as bathroom or locker room policies are left up to the local districts. The State Department of Education is not authorized to collect local policies so we cannot tell you which districts have any policies in place or what those policies specifically state. Attached is the statement from the state superintendent of the State Department of Education, concerning the Obama letter (5.13.2016-Statement from Superintendent Ybarra Regarding Transgendered Students).
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Information about bullying issues, including a public service announcement by the superintendent, can be found at our Safe and Drug Free Schools webpage at http://www.sde.idaho.gov/student-engagement/sdfs/index.html. A large number of manuals and other documents produced in support of school safety and anti-bullying can be found at that site, as well. The Resource files include a number of documents you can download. Clicking on the Prohibition Against Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying link, for example, provides a possible template (which had been prepared by a third-party legal team) for districts to use/modify as they see fit. It's offered only as suggested help and a starting point to develop their own policies.
Attached to this e-mail is an Excel document representing the first statistical report we produced (in response to state law) concerning bullying, a statement about that report (FY16 bullying data introduction), and explanation of that document (FY16 bullying data introduction) and a copy of all relevant state laws and rules concerning bullying (Bullying -- state laws and rules).
Also attached is a presentation (Cassia SD bullying 8.22.16) used by our staff in the Student Engagement department, concerning ways to battle bullying. Each presentation has one or more pages tailored to each district, usually including details from that district's own policies (see pages 37 and 38, for example). The PPT document attached (Cassia SD bullying 8.22.16) is essentially the master, which was originally prepared for a presentation at Burley High School.
In addition, the SDE annually holds a safety and Prevention Conference in Sun Valley for district personnel involved in health, safety and behavioral issues, where speakers from across the country make presentations on a variety of relevant topics, some of which may include discussions in whole or in part on LGBT and/or bullying issues. The slides or documents they present are not the property of the SDE. A link to this year's conference topics can be found at: http://www.sde.idaho.gov/events/ipsc/index.html.
In 2015 we conducted an Idaho Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) that included questions about being bullied. That document can be found by clicking on the YRBS Results link on the main Safe and Drug Free Schools page (again, at http://www.sde.idaho.gov/student-engagement/sdfs/index.html). Pages 4 and 50 have some data you may be interested in concerning gay students and bullying.
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All Idaho LEAs have to submit their components of a federal grant application (known as the Combined Federal State Grant Application -- CFSGA) for each school year, if they want to receive any federal money. One of the prerequisites is to submit an assurance that all schools in the Local Educational Authority (districts or independent public charter schools) will comply with the federal nondiscrimination provisions.
A copy of the required assurance (which applies to both the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school year) reads:

The LEA assures that it will comply with the nondiscrimination provisions relating to programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance as contained in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 USC §2000d et seq., prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 USC §794, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of handicap; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as amended, 20 USC §1681 et seq., prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex; and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, 42 USC §6101 et seq., prohibiting discrimination on the basis of age; and all regulations, guidelines, and standards lawfully adopted under the above statutes by the U.S. Department of Education.
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In terms of sexual health education, the state has not conducted any training sessions in several years since the funding to do so went away. The SDE does, however, provide a professional development link for FLASH training to districts that desire it (http://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/health/locations/family-planning/education/FLASH.aspx). The battles over sex education in Idaho were fought years ago. Essentially, the content standards only briefly refer to sex education, leaving most of the choice as to how to teach the subject at the local level. Those content standards can be found at http://sde.idaho.gov/academic/standards/index.html under the Health Education parts of the Resource files.
"Idaho Education Code 33-1608-1611 includes the home as the primary responsibility for family life and sex education, including moral responsibility. The church and schools can only complement and supplement those standards established in the family. The local school district will determine the parameters of the program in family life and sex education." - 2016 white paper on health standards
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If there is anything else I can do to help you, just send me an e-mail and I'll try and do my best for you, and if you have any questions, let me know and I'll try and get them answered for you.

Kelly Everitt
Idaho State Department of Education
Communications specialist
(208) 332-6818
keveritt@sde.idaho.gov<mailto:keveritt@sde.idaho.gov>

"Supporting Schools and Students to Achieve"