DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. — Some parents of Duval County Schools students are frustrated with a new permission slip they have to sign this year.
It requires guardians to sign off on the name their children want to be called by teachers if it’s not their legal given name.
Jennifer Cowart has two kids in elementary school. She said this form is really about keeping transgender students from going by their chosen name, but she signed it and wrote that her children have permission to be called anything they want at school.
“If my kid wanted to be called Batman today,” Cowart said, “I want my teacher to go, ‘Okay, great. Just turn in your math homework,’ rather than worrying about, ‘Now I have to call their family to see if it’s okay to call them by this name.’”
She said parents and teachers are already overwhelmed.
“It’s a huge burden, and in my opinion, a waste of time,” Cowart said. “I don’t think this is necessary. I think this is an additional bureaucratic burden that places an extra time commitment on both teachers and parents.”
The form references a Florida law about parental consent and says without it, “school personnel are obligated to use your student’s name as it appears on their birth certificate.”
Brittany Beimourtrusting said it’s sad teachers may be forced to call a student by a name they don’t like.
“They have students that have gender identity that they want to be called something else,” Beimourtrusting said, “and they’re forced to only listen to the parents and have these strict guidelines on them that really make for a difficult, compassionate learning environment.”
Both Cowart and Beimourtrusting said it’s one more barrier to the public education kids deserve.
“By trying to make it more difficult for a trans student to use a chosen name, they’ve created this form that creates additional unfunded mandate and a bureaucratic burden for everyone,” Cowart said.
A Duval County Schools spokesperson said the form is how the district is complying with a new Florida Department of Education rule that requires districts to create "provisions for parents to specify the use of any deviation from their child’s legal name in school. School districts will develop a form to obtain parental consent along with any required documentation, as appropriate."