Peel board to include all-gender washrooms in every high school
Peel District School Board must make sure all students feel safe, director Tony Pontes tells staff, in announcing gender-neutral washrooms.

thestar.com
By Kristin Rushowy
Aug. 31, 2016

All-gender washrooms are coming to a school near you - boards around Greater Toronto such as Peel are introducing them in all high schools, while in Durham every public elementary and secondary school should already have at least one.

In York, the public board is already phasing them into all elementary and secondary schools, as is Toronto.

“It is not our role to ask why someone self-identifies (as transgender), it is not about our personal beliefs and what bathroom they choose is not our business. Our job is that when they do identify, we make sure they have a place of safety - just as we do for every other student,” Tony Pontes, director of the Peel District School Board, said to applause Wednesday after making the announcement at his annual school-year kickoff speech to hundreds of staffers.

Last fall, Pontes and the board took a firm stand on the new health curriculum, saying while parents have the right to pull their kids from sex-education lessons, they could not opt kids out of lessons or talk about gender equity.

He mentioned the sex-education controversy again Wednesday, saying the curriculum “was, without a question, a point when we chose to stand behind our value of inclusion.”

Pontes also said he’s “proud to say that within this school year, every secondary school will have a designated bathroom for students” with a sign that says “inclusive washroom” or “all-gender washroom.”

The board will renovate existing washrooms over the school year - typically an existing, single-stall bathroom - and worked with members of the transgender community to create the signs.

The York Region District School Board will be working on renovations to create all-gender washrooms over the next few years, in all elementary and secondary schools.

In Durham, that’s already happened, with schools having been given two signs to post to designate all-gender facilities, with at least one in each building.

“I believe this is an amazing step forward,” said Wesley Welch, a Grade 10 student who attends Mayfield Secondary School in Caledon, of the Peel initiative. “It’s one thing to talk about being an inclusive board, completely another to put policies in place.”

Welch addressed the Peel District School Board of trustees last fall regarding the need to support transgender youth, and said his own school “is very welcoming” and already had a single-stall inclusive washroom when he arrived in Grade 9.

In Toronto, the public school board opened its first inclusive school washroom three years ago, and “have so far included them in more than 50 schools, with future plans for all schools - including all new construction,” said spokesperson Ryan Bird.

Meanwhile, during his Wednesday address to Peel staff, Pontes said it’s time for the board to look at whether students should be allowed to wear sports jerseys or clothing with logos offensive to indigenous people.

It’s a move a group of equity workers across the province is already lobbying the ministry of education about, asking that all Ontario students be banned from wearing clothing with logos belonging to teams such as the Cleveland Indians or Chicago Blackhawks.

Pontes noted the Peel board changed the team name or logo at two schools after consulting with the local First Nations community.

And in an initiative to help staff manage stress, Pontes said staff should not send work-related emails from Friday at 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. Monday, unless there’s an emergency.

“Some of you know this means a big rush of Monday morning emails - yes it does. It also means we are counting on you as adults to determine what is an emergency - there is no email police on this one . . . but this is what school leaders asked for. I’m asking for everyone’s co-operation” he said, adding that he’ll ask for feedback in six months’ time.