JMCSS policy committee discusses Title IX resolution

The long-range planning and policy committee for Jackson-Madison County Schools met Wednesday, July 24, and they discussed a few different items including the school district policy for visitors on campus.

While the policy itself wasn’t discussed in the meeting, disseminating the policy to parents throughout the district was discussed.

The Tennessee School Board Association recommends that each district have that policy, have that policy posted in a visible somewhere close to an area with plenty of foot traffic so most who enter the premises has access to the policy.

The main other item discussed was the resolution that became the topic of discussion in the June meeting. That resolution was against the Title IX changes and expansions announced be an official earlier this year by officials within the administration of President Joe Biden.

Harvey Walden presented a possible resolution he wanted the Board to approve, while TSBA put together a resolution of its own.

Walden and other Board members wanted to vote on the resolutions in June, but four of the seven Board members abstained from voting to give attorney Dale Thomas more time to look at both and the Board members as well.

The committee plans to bring the resolutions back to the Board during their meeting in August to be voted on, but Thomas said the Board members read over both and some of them expressed opinions preferring the TSBA version of the resolution for different reasons including repeated references to the Biden administration.

Thomas expressed some concern about the resolution from his perspective as the school district’s attorney, saying there might’ve been some reward to approving this resolution because they were calling for action from the state’s Attorney General.

Since the Attorney General has already filed cases against the expanded Title IX policies, everything the resolution is calling for has already happened.

“So when you take that into consideration, it really takes out the advantages of passing the resolution and leaves the risks,” Thomas said. “And there are potential risks if we’re ever to be prosecuted.”

The conversation will probably continue at the Board’s work session and meetings in August.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news