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click to enlarge MONICA OBRADOVIC Students protest the policy at a Francis Howell School Board meeting on November 16.

The names of school board members representing the Francis Howell School District weren’t familiar to some queer students in the district. Then a new board policy sought to control where they went to the bathroom. 

The policy, proposed by board treasurer Jane Puszkar, would require students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with the sex on their birth certificates. Supporters of the policy, including a conservative PAC that helped elect Puszkar, feel that the policy respects the privacy preferences of students and staff of all genders by mandating each school in the district to provide single-use restrooms.

But those who the policy would directly affect feel far different. They have spoken out publicly to say the bathroom situation they face at school is already difficult — and that the new policy would make it much worse.

“It’s incredibly discriminatory, and it’s going to cause a lot of harm,” says Alexander Collins, a transgender senior at Francis Howell High School. 

Where queer students can safely and comfortably go to the restroom has been a problem for years. But students say the new policy purporting to handle that problem, as well as resolve any issues their cisgender peers may have, is indicative of a larger cultural issue — one the policy would only exacerbate. 

For the past month, the students, many of them younger than 18, have spoken to their school board during livestreamed meetings. It’s an odd situation to be in: Addressing adults from a podium to explain not only where they should have the right to go to the bathroom, but how difficult it already is to relieve themselves at school. 

Collins, 18, says he’s dealt with medical issues in the past because he feared using the bathroom at school. In the past, Collins, who now only attends in-person schools for half days, says he would refrain from using the restroom for the entire school day. Sometimes, he says, he’d be at school from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. for theater activities and not go to the bathroom the entire time. Doing so led to urinary tract issues. 

click to enlarge MONICA OBRADOVIC “The idea that if I tried to go to the bathroom and a hall monitor could grab me and drag me down to the office to check my birth certificate is terrifying,” says Alexander Collins, a senior.

“It’s definitely led to a couple medical issues for me and a couple other trans kids I know,” Collins says. “It’s pretty common for trans people to not use public restrooms whatsoever.” 

Collins also says he’s received threats from other students and even was once assaulted in a women’s restroom at the high school (the same restroom the new policy would require him to use). Collins says he reported the incident, which involved a female student, but says it was mostly ignored. 

“So the fact that they care about theoretical people being assaulted when real people have been assaulted, reported it and then basically told to go away, is kind of horrendous,” Collins says. 

Levi Hormuth, a junior at Francis Howell High School, says he typically uses the restroom during the class when there’s a high chance no one would be inside, but there’s been times he just “couldn’t bear” to step inside a restroom, he says, out of fear that he’d get harassed or make someone uncomfortable. 

“I’m currently being taught to just not care, but before, like in middle school or my freshman or sophomore years, I would have just held it. All day. All seven hours,” Hormuth says.

So-called exclusionary bathroom policies and laws have long been a point of focus in school board culture wars. That’s despite widespread guidance saying schools should allow gender diverse students or workers to use facilities that match their gender identity. 

The American Medical Association opposes preventing transgender individuals from accessing public facilities, including restrooms, that are in line with their gender identity. The American Academy of Pediatrics also encourages gender-affirming practices in regard to restrooms. 

In addition to barring students from using bathrooms that do not match their birth certificates, Francis Howell’s proposed policy would mandate each school have at least one single-use restroom available to any sex or gender. It also makes a point to condemn any harassment or discrimination any student would face for choosing the single-use restrooms. But it does allow administrators to discipline students if they “abuse” the restrooms and are chronically late to class. 

There’s currently one single-use restroom at Francis Howell High School, according to students who spoke to the RFT. It’s in the nurse’s office on one end of the school — where it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get there and back to class during the school’s five-minute passing periods. 

“I don’t have time to go to the bathroom,” Collins says. “If I do go to the bathroom during class, I’m missing like 10 minutes of instruction time, which isn’t fair to me when other students can miss two or three minutes.” 

School buses also leave five minutes after school lets out, according to Hormuth. So there’s no time to go after class either.

Even if students had time to reach the one single-use restroom, it presents a dilemma for students who aren’t “out” yet, says Elaine Brune. 

Brune spent 25 years in the Francis Howell School District as a teacher and administrator before they retired in 2013. Brune, who is nonbinary, says the district was generally accepting of queer people by the end of their tenure. And a lot of the students are more open now, Brune says, “but to be singled out by having to use or not use a specific restroom is kind of distressing.” 

That’s part of the reason why some LGBTQ+ individuals just avoid using the restrooms altogether. 

“Trans and nonbinary students, and even just some regular students, don’t eat and don’t drink during the entire school day so they don’t have to use the restroom,” Brune says. 

click to enlarge MONICA OBRADOVIC Jane Puszkar was elected to the Francis Howell School Board in April.

Francis Howell’s proposal follows a letter that state Senator Nick Schroer (R-St. Charles) sent to St. Charles Board of Education Members in September. Schroer, along with 12 other St. Charles County lawmakers, urged St. Charles County school districts to adopt policies that would require students to use bathrooms that align with their biological sex or single-stall restrooms. 

There are seven members of the Francis Howell School Board. Five, including Puszkar, were elected in April 2022 and April 2023 with backing from Francis Howell Families, a Republican-supported PAC. 

On its website, the PAC expressed broad support for the bathroom policy, saying that it ensured the preferences of transgender students were respected by mandating single-use restrooms in every school. 

“Policy 2116 also defends the privacy and safety of everyone else who abides by the biological sex on their birth certificate,” a post on Francis Howell Families’ website reads. It continues, referencing the debunked idea that some schools have provided litterboxes for students who identify as animals, “It mandates that only toilets and urinals can be used to dispose of human waste (in other words, no cat litter-boxes for staff to clean up).”

The board originally planned to vote on the policy on November 16. The matter was tabled, however, in order to provide board members more time to “obtain any additional information they deem applicable in making decisions around this issue,” Bertrand, the board president, wrote on Facebook.

Collins has just one semester of high school left in high school, but says he’s still scared about what this policy could do once finally voted on. Earlier this month, he testified against the policy at a school board meeting even though it wasn’t on the agenda. 

“I’m terrified for them,” Collins says of his younger schoolmates. “I’m mostly here just to make sure that they survive to graduate.” 

Hormuth’s family plans to take legal action if the policy gets approved. His mom, Becky Hormuth, is a literacy coach at an elementary school in the district, and plans to take her son out of the school by the end of the year. 

She says, “I do not want him back in the halls of Francis Howell.”

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