By LGIS News Service | Lake County Gazette
Deerfield School District 109 administrators forced teen girls at Shepard Middle School to change in front of a boy in the school locker room.
That’s according to parent testimony heard during public comment Thursday’s District 109 School Board meeting.
After receiving a complaint from girls in early February that a boy was in their locker room while they were changing for gym class, District 109 “Assistant Superintendent for Student Services” Joanna Ford, “Assistant Principal” Cathy Van Treese and “Director for Student Services” Ginger Logemann reprimanded the girls, then escorted them to the locker room and tried to force them to change in front of the boy.
Parent Nicole Georgas, whose daughter refused and ran out of the locker room, described her daughter’s experiences to the school board Thursday.
“The male student was present in the girls locker room,” Georges said. “Feeling violated, the girls made the choice not change into their PE (physical education) clothes with a biological male present.”
The next day, Georgas said, Ford, Van Treese and Logermann tried to bully them into to changing in front of the boy.
“(The administrators) all came into the girls locker room, making them change into uniform. This went on all week,” Georgas said. “My daughter refused to take part in her privacy being violated. How dare they!”
She said Shepard School Principal Rob Wegley told her daughter that any male student can use any girl’s bathroom or locker room at his school so long as they say claim to “identify as female.”
Georgas said Wegley told her this was the school policy as dictated by Ford and “legal counsel.”
Georgas said she has filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of her daughter with the U.S. Department of Justice.
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