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NILES — Brandywine School Board members appear to agree on the need to protect students in the light of new federal regulations, but they have yet to settle on how they should go about doing it.

Monday’s meeting was the second in a row to focus primarily on whether to approve a proposed new Title IX policy. It was also the second meeting in a row with no resolution of the matter. Board members have now scheduled a meeting for Sept. 9 at 6:30 p.m. to continue the discussion with the goal of taking a vote at their Sept. 16 meeting.

Board President Elaine McKee announced Monday that a vote taken Aug. 5 to defeat the proposed policy was void as the number of board members voting to reject the policy was not a majority of the full board as two members were absent. “So we’re back to square one,” she said.

That policy recognized the changes in federal Title IX regulations that went into effect Aug. 1. The new rule expands the 1972 federal law barring sex discrimination in education to add protections for LGTBQ+ students. McKee and two other board members want to recognize the new law but also add protections for female students.

New board member John Jarpe – who was appointed in late July to fill a vacancy – suggested a different approach. Rather than changing and adding language to the proposed new Title IX policy, he said the board should address their concerns by changing the sexual harassment policy and adding language to the student handbook instead.

“Some of those things may fall in line under that policy more than the Title IX policy,” he said. “Some of the deep concerns you had could fall under that purview.”

While some board members appeared ready to go that route, passing the Title IX policy and adding to the sexual harassment policy or to student handbooks, Board Vice-President Thomas Payne said he was not in favor of that and continued to push for making changes to the Title IX policy itself.

“It’s important for us to consider mitigating any safety and privacy concerns any student may potentially have,” he said. “This has been going on across the nation for some time and we can’t say that at some point it might not reach Brandywine … It’s good to be proactive to come with rules and language.”

There was some debate as to whether the district could be in danger of losing federal funding if it doesn’t adopt the Title IX policy. Superintendent Travis Walker said it’s not a matter of possibly losing federal funding but opening the district up to litigation if there is a Title IX or civil rights complaint and the district doesn’t have a policy in place.

Walker also pointed out that in his reading of the proposed new policy, it deals primarily with administrative guidance and timelines, such as how the district would respond to complaints.

“The policy doesn’t say you have to allow a male into a female sport … it talks about how you respond to Title IX and sexual harassment complaints,” he said.

Payne disagreed.

“The policy says how we should handle incidents but we need to put parameters in the policy to mitigate such instances so we don’t have a Title IX complaint,” he said. “I’m absolutely concerned about the safety and privacy of all students.”

Board members disagreed some on how serious the problem is. Board member Brian Burge said he thought the issue was being blown out of proportion. He said that coaches and parents have handled situations for years where girls play boys support and they had safe spaces to change and get ready.

Payne and Michelanne McCombs disagreed. They said the world is different now and not what anyone would have imagined 20 or 30 years ago. They said that accommodating a girl wanting to play boys’ sports isn’t the same as dealing with someone identifying as the other sex.

“Here’s the bottom line, we pass this policy and the law says that a biological male has the right to go into female spaces and a biological female has the right to go into male spaces,” Payne said. “We have a responsibility to protect everyone in those spaces. If we pass the policy as is, I don’t think we’re doing our job.”

A number of suggestions were discussed to make spaces safer. They included having private dressing rooms, not allowing students to walk around naked in locker rooms, putting locks and doors on restrooms and shower stalls and allowing students to use a staff bathroom with a locked door.

The idea of having locks and doors in restrooms was questioned by teacher Debbie Carew during public comments. She said she could see problems with having locks and doors, noting that as a teacher she wants to be able to look under the stalls to see if two people are in a stall.

“Yes, we want to keep everyone safe but we also want to keep everyone safe when they’re intending bad things or naughty things behind a locked door,” she said. “Having too many locked spaces will keep staff from intervening when we have to.”

In action at Monday’s meeting, the board approved new three year contracts with the district’s paraprofessionals, bus drivers and food service workers. Walker said the contracts run through June, 2027. Employees will not get a pay raise this year but it will be looked at again for next year.

In other action, Cindy Boughton was hired as a new fifth grade teacher and Ellen Adams and Lea Germann were named as the district’s representatives to the Berrien RESA Parent Advisory Committee.

Walker reported that new teachers reported to the district on Monday with the rest of the staff reporting Tuesday. School starts next Monday.