TALK 94.5 Liz And Nick
TALK 94.5 Liz And Nick
CAROLINA ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP NETWORK’S BRYCE FIELDER CHECKS IN 7/2/26
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So we just were speaking with um the associate editor at Breitbart, Neil Monroe, about the SCOTUS decisions. We didn't really have time to delve deep into the transgender um topic. So maybe give us an idea of what was decided by the Supreme Court and how that will impact our kids here.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Of course, and the Supreme Court just finished its term and left us with several major decisions. And one deals with basically whether states can pass laws preventing biological males from playing on girls' sports teams. And that was the question before them. So the decision from yesterday resolves two cases, one out of Idaho and the other out of West Virginia, where trans-identifying athletes sued over their state law that prohibited them from playing on the other sexes sports team. And so basically the question before the Supreme Court is whether these laws that have been passed by at least over 25 states in the country violate federal discrimination laws such as Title IX or even the Constitution. And the short answer is no, they do not. The court ruled 6-3 that states can, in fact, designate sports based on biological sex in both K through 12 and higher education. And interestingly, they were unanimous on the federal law question, but they're actually split along those lines on the constitution on the constitutional one. And basically, what the majority here is correctly distinguishing between your gender preference and your biological sex. And so what we mean when we say discrimination based on sex, we're referring to your biological sex, not the gender that you prefer or that you assert.
SPEAKER_01But there's been argument in the past, for example, if you're on some kind of hormone for like two years, you're allowed to play on certain teams. You know, I mean I've heard this before, you know. Maybe not with high school, but with college or professional sports. So this is really impacting uh just uh K through 12 uh sports? Or does it go into college sports? Because I know Title IX is in, you know, they follow that in college sports, but what about like the Olympics or other kind of national sporting events?
SPEAKER_02So it uh it applies to both K through 12 and the college level. And in fact, one of the state cases dealt with K-12, and the other dealt with higher education. And and really at the heart of this is do states have the ability to designate their sports teams based on biological sex? So some will call this sort of a ban on transgender athletes, but really the court doesn't take a position on whether transgender athletes should or should not play on their preferred team. What they're upholding is the right of states to decide on that issue through a democratic process by passing legislation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So it goes back to the states. And I'm just wondering, will you know how will this now this is gonna have a major impact on where kids go to school, you know? Like if I were a girl, I wouldn't want to go to a school that uh is in a state that allows transgender, you know, boys to uh, you know, transgender girls to participate in the sport that I'm competing in.
SPEAKER_02And certainly in those states that have not uh passed legislation on this question, it might. But South Carolina resolved this question in 2022, um, as did many other states when we passed the Save Women's Sports Act. Um and that law says that males can't compete on teams that are designated for girls. Um females can uh compete on male sports teams, but only if there is not a female specific option. So it does give them an option to do that. And it even allows for co-ed teams if you'd like to do that. And so South Carolina is again one of, I think the current numbers 27 or somewhere over 25 states that have basically put protections in place that protect girl spaces, girl sports teams, and um fortunately the court, and really what should have almost been a unanimous decision, this seems like a pretty obvious question, um, decided that the state laws can stand.
SPEAKER_01How does this filter in with the issue of uh like locker rooms and bathrooms and things like that where you might be changing? I mean, there are cases uh where you know the girls may not even know they were with a boy in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_02Right. They run parallel. And South Carolina also took this question up first through budget proviso, which we've talked about on this program, and uh passed legislation this session to actually codify that, which applies the same principle that locker rooms and bathrooms and overnight stays must be designated based on biological sex. And even in the case of, you know, on school grounds, if that protection is violated, if if you are in the restroom and a person of the other sex enters that restroom and violates your privacy, and the school did not take reasonable measures to prevent that from happening, you actually have uh ground for a potential lawsuit. And so um, again, it's good to see uh states like South Carolina taking this issue up. Uh it's unfortunate that not everyone has reached this the same conclusion, but you have to wonder now with the sort of backing of the court on this question if if even more states might might follow suit.
SPEAKER_01Now, when my son was involved with you know the Williamsport Little League, you know, track. I mean, we had to show his birth certificate to make sure of his age. Are we going to be able to do that? Now will they need to show their birth certificate for not only their age, but the stack that they are uh when joining some kind of a school sport? Because there are cases where uh you may not even know. I mean, someone may change their kid's gender when the kid's three, and you know, who's gonna know? You know, you just move on and do your own thing under the radar. And there were, I remember some girls saying, I had no idea that was a chant transgender woman in the bathroom, in the locker room, and I'm changing and showering, and I had no idea I've been doing that with a boy.
SPEAKER_02As far as I understand, the way that we've been doing this is the way that it will continue to happen. So schools will have those records as to what the biological sex uh of students are, and so um that that should continue to play out in the way that it does. But you're right. Um, and I I guess the reality is if a student did it, eventually that would that would come to light, you would have to think, right? Especially if you're if you're sharing these closed faces. And so um that has not seemed to be an issue as as far as we can tell in South Carolina because that's sort of been the norm for the last couple of years.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you needed to register your kid, but are you gonna pull it when they joined a sports team? You know, like there has to be now what is the protocol to make sure the the boy is a boy and the girl's the girl, you know.
SPEAKER_02Right. And so I would expect whatever process that the school is using to determine, I or I guess in this case to verify that it is all females on a sports team and males on a sports team would be the same uh process that we use.
SPEAKER_01Now, what about regular bathrooms, regular, you know, non-team, non-sports related situations where it matters?
SPEAKER_02So uh if I recall what the the what is now the law says that schools have to have at least one um multi-use bathroom. In other words, anyone can use it, right? And that sort of simplifies the the issue a little bit. And the restriction only applies for bathrooms that are designated for females or designated for males, and says that the other sex cannot use it. And then there's this restroom over here. We all sort of know that everyone can use that uh and mass. That doesn't become a problem.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I wanted to ask you also about July 1st uh being, you know, the day that a lot of laws um start to uh di become uh effective. And one of the things that I discovered and I didn't get to send it to in ahead of time is the Educator Assistance Act. Did you notice that um the fact that it's going to be it's effective starting today?
SPEAKER_02I don't have that law in front of me, but it sounds like is that is that a a piece of legislation that passed um uh in the current year?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's effective starting today. And it's uh and it does a lot of things, uh, but one of them is better tracking of student outcomes. So it allows uh our state to use existing education data to see what happens to I'm reading this uh to ha to South Carolina public school graduates after high school. It looks at college enrollment, workforce participation, other post-secondary outcomes, and it streamlines how schools collect and report this information to determine whether schools are preparing students for college and careers. Um and it does other things for teachers as well. But I thought that was a really interesting thing because I I just I just was thinking that we probably were doing that already. We had stats on that, but uh I guess we we don't.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm I'm seeing it here. It seems like a pretty comprehensive piece of legislation. I know the General Assembly also this year passed um vendors that basically improve quality of life and give teachers more flexibility. And that's something that we hear about a lot. Of course, we talk about teacher pay as being needed to retain and recruit high-quality teachers, but a lot of teachers also talk about conditions in our schools not being micromanaged, making sure that they have adequate time to do their planning. And so if I'm remembering the purpose of that law, and it could have been another piece of legislation, that aims to improve sort of the conditions for teachers, in addition to the pay question that the budget uh aims to approve.
SPEAKER_01Okay. All right, what else did you want to bring up to us, uh Bryce?
SPEAKER_02Well, we have a new, speaking of July 1st, the start of the new fiscal year for state governments and local governments, we have a new uh budget for Ori County schools. And the school board approved uh last month your new $1.2 billion budget, that's billion with a B. Um, and I'll just give you a few quick highlights as to what this includes. So it's gonna raise your starting teacher pay up to uh just over $54,000, which is uh well above the state minimum of $50,500. Interestingly, and I'm curious for your thoughts on this, Liz, it adds a new bonus program for staff that is tied to attendance. And we've actually seen this uh more often recently, where you could at least theoretically get more of that bonus based on how many days that you actually show up to work. And the the more that you uh the better your record, maybe you get that full bonus or a partial bonus. And it sounds like a crazy idea. We've seen this done for students. You might recall like every week of good performance, they can get some amount of money at the end of the quarter. Now we're kind of experimenting with this idea for staff, and it's really because staff absences are also an issue. And so um I hope it's you know successful for your district, and I'd be curious to see if others that try a similar thing.
SPEAKER_01Hmm. I mean, we were talking earlier about um how the Education Assistance Act allows you to donate your time to a coworker that needs the time, and we thought that was pretty cool and talked about how some businesses pay you for unused sick time. That makes more sense. I mean, are they talking about sick time or vacation time? Uh because I mean the teachers generally get vacation when kids get vacation, so I'm guessing it's sick time. And I'm just thinking that uh why don't we instead of giving them bonuses, why don't we just pay them for the sick time that's unused or a portion of it or something like that? Like you know, uh that's going to be encouraging people to come to to work sick in some cases. I mean, how much sick time are they getting? I I don't so I'd have to know more information.
SPEAKER_02That that is a good point. That that could be a potential downside. The the idea is you get the full bonus if you come to work, you know, for you know, you don't miss any days of work or you you have near-perfect attendance or something like that. Um I'll look into specifics. It it did have a thrill, a $3 million price tag. Uh, the final thing I'll say is that Orie County Schools is growing. So you're adding just under 150 new students for the new school year. And this is not true in many of the districts that we work in, um especially in North Carolina, where districts are seeing a lot of enrollment decline. So Ori County School is the third biggest in the state. It's good to see uh continued growth there.
SPEAKER_01We did the math this morning on the budget, and we decided uh based on our 47,000 students that it's $25,000 per student, um, this $1.2 billion Orie County budget. And we're wondering if if parents are getting their money's worth. What do you think?
SPEAKER_02Well, that is the eternal question. I mean, do we have a full hour here? Um there is always we can do to do more with less money. That's true in state government, that's true at the school level. Um, you know, the district did not raise property taxes, which should be the norm, right? We shouldn't expect them to do that, but that's not true for other school districts. And you uh did to meet your budget threshold, tap into uh the district's fund balance, which is essentially a reserve fund, and that's the sort of thing where if it's fully necessary, it can be appropriate, but it should really be well thought out before before you do that. So uh, but yeah, the the per pupil spending continues to rise as education quality does not necessarily keep the same pace.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. All right. Uh any last things, Bryce? Uh any events coming up?
SPEAKER_02Uh you can at schoolboardleader.com. We should have a few more webinars coming up in the near future. And if you'd like, you can sign up for our uh newsletter on the front page there. And again, that is schoolboardleader.com.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much.