GRAPEVINE, Texas — Grapevine High School students skipped third period Friday to protest the school board’s new policy that was approved Monday.
“These rules are taking away our rights to feel safe and to express ourselves and to be honest about who we are,” one student said.
“Eventually there will be change, but for now, we just have to do what we can,” another added.
Late Monday night, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD board trustees voted 4-3 in favor of instituting a new 36-page policy that, among other things, a) bans the teaching of critical race theory, b) implements a strict review process for library books, c) actively works not to promote, require or encourage the use of pronouns that are not aligned with the gender people are assigned at birth, and d) require people to use the bathrooms designated for the genders they were assigned at birth.
“Not even a month into the school year, I have to act like I don’t exist,” a Grapevine High School freshman said.
“I feel like it’s my duty in Grapevine to stand up for what I believe in so children and students who are more scared to speak out will be honestly inspired by the people we have here today,” another student told WFAA.
Students held posters and signs: One read, ‘Kids shouldn’t feel unsafe because of your politics.’
"What we just passed was the law," GCISD Board Vice President Shannon Braun said in Tuesday's special episode of Y'all-itics. "It's already the law. Anybody who just voted against that, just voted against the law -- that’s actually the problem... because we’re not following it, that’s why. When you have teachers that decide... you’ve got people that teach what they want to teach, do what they want to do, promote what they want to promote."
She outright denied that any conservative groups helped draft GCISD's wide-ranging new policies.