I am the mother of a transgender student in UCPS.  Coming in to this school year I was warned by other parents of transgender students in this county that Powerschool would be an issue and I was given a list of every single thing to look out for and share this with the administration and his teacher.  At the start of the year, both my son and I were pleasantly surprised that we had no issues at all!  All documents came back with his preferred name on it.  He never had to see his old name.  I asked the school how they managed to do it as I was mentally prepared to have a much harder time.  It was a simple change on the computer.  After a month the office informed me that they were told my UCPS general counsel that the name needed to be changed back.  Imagine my son’s horror when he went to buy lunch and on the screen was his old name.  My son has been so resilient and has created strategies in order to not see that ‘dead’ name.  He has to check out his books at a different time than his classmates just so they don’t see his old name.  He has his lunch ID number memorized so that they don’t have to look it up by his old name.  When he takes tests on his chromebook, he has to place post it notes over the name just so that he doesn’t see it.  His teacher has worked hard to make sure that everything is changed manually or with the use of white out just so that he doesn’t see his old name. 

The issue that I have with Union County’s policy is that this is something that can be remedied.  CMS school system will change the names of transgender students in the system at the beginning of the year.  Cabarrus County makes these changes for their transgender students.  The employee in charge of these changes in CMS has helped other counties organize to make these changes for transgender students.  He has worked with Guilford and Raleigh to name a few and he is more than willing to help Union County on how they may make these changes to support their transgender students.  This issue is so important and change needs to be made.  This topic will be added to the March Union County School Board Meeting.   I'm sure I am not the only parent who struggles with this and I am trying to rally to get as many parents and allies of our transgender youth to support me with their presence at this board meeting. I will also be creating a petition for those who want to show their support but are unable to be present at the meeting.  Let’s show the school board that change needs to be made and it has to happen now.