An Ohio county court judge will consider whether to remove three members from the Bethel School Board in Tipp City, Ohio, for continuing to allow a boy to use the girls’ restroom at his school as he transgenders.
A vocal group of parents spearheading the effort to remove school board members Danny Elam, Lori Sebastian, and its president, Lydda Mansfield, filed a civil complaint with the Miami County Court of Common Pleas on May 26, citing malfeasance, misconduct, abuse of power, and other issues.
The group collected about 650 signatures on petitions or about 100 more than the 10 percent of registered voters required to move forward with the complaint. The parents are asking the school district to return to its original policy of providing transgender students a private restroom or remove the board members.
The initial in Judge Jeannine Pratt’s courtroom is yet to be scheduled after the families fired an attorney and withdrew their complaint in order to file a revised version.
During its first school board meeting of the year on January 10, then-Bethel Schools Superintendent Justin Firks announced a policy relating to the restrooms he later called “a stance.” The measure allows the biological male to use the restroom of his choice. The boy was a middle school student but will be a freshman at high school this year.
First-year Bethel School Board Member Jessica Franz and her fellow school board member Natalie Donahue oppose the boy going into the girls’ restroom, which the school district allowed for the second half of the school year, from January to late May.
So far, his use of the girls’ school restroom has caused five families to remove their children from the school, and about 20 girls to request the use of a private restroom on campus, according to Beam.
Firks implemented the restroom policy without a vote of the school board citing Title IX and the school’s non-discrimination policy, Franz and Beam told The Epoch Times. The opposition parent group formed two days later to start its efforts to remove the school board members, Beam said.
Title IX is the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government.
“Our community is clearly not in favor of this,” Beam said. “It’s a safety and privacy issue. Girls are very uncomfortable about a boy coming into their restroom. We contacted more than schools in the area to see what their policy was, and they do not allow someone to use a restroom of their opposite sex.
“We are not just fighting for the rights of our children,” Beam added. “We are fighting for the rights of all children.”
A date and time for such a hearing have not been set because of “scheduling conflicts,” according to a school official.
There currently are no provisions in Ohio to recall school board members like other elected officials, so the group is somewhat pioneering an effort to remove them, which is permitted under the Ohio Constitution.
On June 23, Bethel Township resident Nick Brusky who is a parent in the Bethel Schools District located near Dayton started collecting signatures for a statewide petition to implement a provision allowing Ohio residents to recall school board members.
Beam told The Epoch Times on June 22 that the school district’s former superintendent (Firks) began considering an alternative other than the private restroom for transgenders when the family of the boy identifying as a girl threatened to sue the school sometime between September and December 2021.
Beam, who has lived in Bethel Township near Dayton for 42 years, said she has two grandchildren in Bethel Schools and nieces and nephews who attend there. Her three children graduated from and her husband graduated from Bethel, and her daughter teaches at the middle school.
She stressed to The Epoch Times that the community and parents strongly oppose allowing a student to go into a restroom of the opposite sex.
“We are a conservative rural area,” Beam said. “A lot of people come to this area to raise their family because of its core values. We knew this was going to be a battle, but we’re in this for the long haul.”
Bethel Schools spokesman Jacob Watson told The Epoch Times on June 21 that he was not aware of the complaint filed seeking to remove the three school board members. Watson said that the district did not have any comments on the situation at this time.
Mansfield, Elam, Sebastian, and Firks did not return phone messages to The Epoch Times seeking comment.
Both Franz and Donahue were sworn in as school board members at the meeting on Jan. 10 when Firks announced the policy allowing the transgender to use the girls’ restroom.
Franz told The Epoch Times that she started considering running for a seat on the Bethel School Board when she had concerns over the school district’s mask mandates during the COVID pandemic, and over critical race theory.
“It was a rude awakening,” Franz told The Epoch Times of Firks announcing what she describes as a “unisex bathroom” policy. “I was totally blind-sided by this as was the board.”
Franz said that when the hearing is held in court over the possible removal of the board members, the judge could decide to remove all three board members or one. If the judge were to remove one board member, the remaining members of the board would appoint a new one.
Firks resigned from his job on May 19 after he accepted a job as principal of Elida High School near Lima, Ohio. The Bethel School Board voted to accept his resignation during a special meeting on May 20. Firks’ contract expires July 31.
In his resignation letter, Firks alluded to receiving pressure on the bathroom issue that caused him stress as a contributing factor to his decision to leave Bethel.
Beam went on to say that the Guardians of the Hive have been called bigots, racists, a hate group, and even homophobes.
“We’ve been called everything,” Beam said. “Our goal through all of this is to have the school board call back or return the original policy of providing a private restroom to transgender students. ”Or we want the three school board members being removed for going along with this. It’s not right.”
“We know that transgenders have rights, but not when they infringe upon the rights of others.”
