Committee rejects changes to its transgender student policy after a long public hearing

What happened

On July 16, 2026 the Cumberland School Committee voted 5-2 to reject proposed amendments to policy A-7, which governs how the district handles information about transgender and nonbinary students, leaving the existing policy in force. About thirty people spoke at the public hearing, almost all of them opposing the amendments. The district's attorney had advised that a recent US Supreme Court decision put the current policy out of compliance and that doing nothing carried legal risk. Andrew Bacon and Jason Dean voted against rejecting the amendments; Dean said he was not willing to abandon parental rights.

Why it matters to families

The policy decides whether school staff tell a parent that a student has identified as transgender or nonbinary at school. Families on both sides of this question now know the rule that applies in Cumberland classrooms this school year, and the committee has been told that keeping it may expose the district to a lawsuit.

The evidence

The approved minutes of the July 16, 2026 regular meeting record a roll call vote in which Chea, Feather, Smith, Goldstein and Vogel voted to reject the amendments and Bacon and Dean voted against, following a public hearing at which around thirty residents and other speakers, including a lawyer from the Rhode Island Center for Justice, asked the committee to keep the policy unchanged.

The source