A Pennsylvania school district has reversed course and boarded up window openings it recently installed that allowed people in a middle school hallway to peer into two gender-neutral-designated bathrooms, the superintendent said Friday.

The two windows were installed in recent weeks following a vote in August of the South Western School District’s conservative-majority school board, a move the board president said was designed to monitor and prevent misbehavior. Such openings weren’t installed in any of the school’s non-gender-neutral bathrooms.

The openings were covered by plywood on Thursday on the advice of lawyers from the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center, a conservative legal group the board consulted before ordering the windows installed, Superintendent Jay Burkhart said.

“I believe that we have to protect all of our students,” Burkhart said in a phone interview. “Students are entitled to privacy and I don’t want to violate that.”

The board “has been targeting transgender students and stripping away their rights for a while,” said Kristina Moon, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Education Law Center, which has asked affected students to reach out to it. She said the “multiple tiers and assignments” of bathrooms “overcomplicated a nonissue,” stigmatizing students.

“Now they’ve cut actual holes for windows into the student bathrooms — but only the bathrooms they expect trans and nonbinary children to use. This is a horrifying violation of children’s privacy and cruel discrimination targeted against trans and nonbinary kids,” Moon said in an emailed statement.

The mother of an eighth-grader at Emory H. Markle Middle School in Hanover said Friday that she considered the decision to cover up the windows “a small victory.”

Jennifer Holahan, who drew attention to the bathroom window openings by posting a photo on social media, said she’s “nervous to see” what happens at a meeting next week of the conservative-majority school board.

“This has been a continuing agenda that they’ve had,” Holahan said in a phone interview. “They’ve proved this more than once. I think this is the first time that the school board president has been shut down. And I just wonder what’s to come from that.”

School board president Matthew A. Gelazela, elected as a Libertarian in 2021, told a reporter seeking comment Friday that he considered the call to be criminal harassment and abruptly hung up.

Earlier this week, Gelazela issued a statement defending the bathroom windows as a safety improvement — that “in making the area outside of stalls more viewable, we are better able to monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism,” the Evening Sun of Hanover reported.

Gelazela’s statement also warned students that they should not consider the bathroom areas outside of the toilet stalls to be private.

Markle Middle School Principal Wes Winters directed questions about the bathroom windows to Gelazela. Board member Justin Lighty declined to discuss the matter, while several other board members and the board’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

In an emailed statement, the ACLU of Pennsylvania described the school board’s policy as discriminatory and one that makes children less safe. The South Western School District has about 4,400 students.

The York Dispatch reported this week that the board has been looking into LGBTQ+ students and bathrooms for more than a year, acting on concerns from unspecified people to establish five bathroom categories: male and female based on sex assigned at birth, male and female based on gender identity, and single-user facilities that are deemed gender neutral.

Gelazela said during an Aug. 14 board meeting that the windows were part of bathroom changes meant to bolster privacy, the Dispatch reported. The vote was 6-3 in favor of adding the windows, though the Evening Sun reported that work had already begun when the vote was taken.

Holahan said the window openings not only allowed people in the hallway to peer into the bathrooms, they also let noises from the bathrooms be heard. Burkhart, the superintendent, said the two gender neutral bathrooms have not been a particular problem for the type of misbehavior Gelazela cited. The renovations cost $8,700, Burkhart said.

At least 11 states have adopted laws barring transgender girls and women from using girls and women’s bathrooms at public schools, and in some cases other government facilities.

As for Pennsylvania, the Education Law Center wrote in a January analysis that federal appeals courts have ruled students have a right to use bathrooms and locker rooms aligned with their gender identity. Moon, a senior lawyer for the center, said all children have the right to use an easily accessible bathroom convenient to their classes that affords them true privacy and does not discriminate based on sex and gender identity.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA/AP) — Week 5 of Pennsylvania high school football is here. 

With plenty of big storylines for teams throughout Western Pennsylvania, it’s going to be an exciting season. 

After the games, you can find all the latest scores and highlights from around the state right here!

SEARCH FOR YOUR TEAM’S SCORE:

Beaver Area 42, Deer Lakes 0

Belle Vernon 68, Chartiers Valley 21

Bellefonte 43, Philipsburg-Osceola 0

Berks Catholic 35, Kutztown 34

Berlin-Brothersvalley 10, Tussey Mountain 0

Berwick 41, Greater Nanticoke Area High School 0

Big Spring 30, West Perry 13

Biglerville 17, York Catholic 14

Bishop Canevin 42, Serra Catholic 0

Bishop McCort 34, Westmont Hilltop 14

Blue Mountain 55, Lehighton 14

Bonner & Prendergast 41, Father Judge High School 14

Bradford 27, Smethport 12

California 44, Carmichaels 8

Cambria Heights 43, Conemaugh Township 6

Cambridge Springs 54, Cochranton 0

Central Martinsburg 40, Penns Valley 6

Central York 62, Northeastern 13

Chambersburg 28, Carlisle 13

Clairton 70, Springdale 0

Conestoga Valley 28, Governor Mifflin 21

Connellsville 17, North Star 7

Corry 48, North East 0

Delone Catholic High School 40, Hanover 7

DuBois 62, Ridgway 18

East Stroudsburg North 21, Pleasant Valley 20

Eastern York 49, Dover 0

Elizabeth-Forward 56, Derry 14

Elwood City Riverside 14, Freedom 0

Emmaus 31, Whitehall 7

Fairview 10, Fort LeBoeuf 0

Farrell def. Kennedy Catholic High School, forfeit

Forest Hills 42, Central Cambria 6

Fort Cherry 35, Cornell 6

Frankford 14, Boys’ Latin 6

Franklin Regional 52, Fox Chapel 14

Garnet Valley 41, Radnor 0

General McLane 48, Warren 6

Harbor Creek 31, Girard 12

Harrisburg 33, Altoona 0

Hickory 56, Titusville 21

Interboro 36, Penn Wood 8

Jim Thorpe 39, Catasauqua 0

Kane Area 20, Brookville 14

Kiski 36, Latrobe 13

Lewisburg 41, Midd-West 7

Line Mountain 55, Middletown 21

MD School for the Deaf, Md. 40, Mercersburg Academy 6

MLK 20, Gratz 14

Manheim Township 38, Cedar Crest 13

Meadville 62, Franklin 6

Mechanicsburg 42, Northern York 14

Monessen 14, Chartiers-Houston 7

Montgomery 45, Northwest 8

Montoursville 44, Central Mountain 7

Montrose 13, Holy Redeemer 0

Mount Pleasant 28, Greensburg Salem 21

Mt Union 46, Juniata Valley 0

Muncy 59, North Penn-Mansfield 20

New Oxford 43, Kennard-Dale 6

North Hills 21, Plum 14

Northern Cambria 28, Penns Manor 0

Northern Lehigh 42, Wilson 7

Northwestern Lehigh 35, Pottsville 0

Olney 18, Edison 12

Palmerton 44, Palisades 21

Parkland 56, Allentown Dieruff 6

Penn Cambria 45, Chestnut Ridge 7

Penn Charter 21, Wyoming Seminary 0

Penncrest 21, Upper Darby 0

Perkiomen School 29, Coventry 28

Pittsburgh Central Catholic 56, Shaler 7

Pope John Paul II 41, Pottsgrove 0

Richland 49, Greater Johnstown High School 14

Schuylkill Valley 42, Columbia 6

Scranton 31, Wallenpaupack 7

Scranton Prep 27, Abington Heights 21

Selinsgrove 14, Shikellamy 7

Seneca 27, Eisenhower 14

Seneca Valley 31, Canon-McMillan 30

Seton-LaSalle 49, Sto-Rox 0

Shamokin 28, Williamsport 16

Sharon 35, Grove City 0

Sharpsville 35, Mercer 6

Shippensburg 35, Gettysburg 7

Souderton 44, Bensalem 13

South Philadelphia 7, Academy at Palumbo 6

South Western 27, West York 7

Southern Lehigh 43, Tamaqua 7

Susquehannock 21, York Suburban 14

Troy 50, Wellsboro 20

Tyrone 32, Huntingdon 7

Unionville 20, Avon Grove 7

United Valley 28, Portage Area 0

University, W.Va. 17, Butler 13

Upper Dauphin 30, Camp Hill 21

Upper St Clair 17, South Fayette 7

Valley View 21, North Pocono 14

Western Wayne 42, West Scranton 16

Wilkes-Barre 21, Pittston 10

Williams Valley 47, Panther Valley 0

___

Some high school football scores are provided by Scorestream.com, https://scorestream.com/

Who gets your vote to become the next Attorney General of Pennsylvania depends on what you care about most and whether you want someone with experience as a state official or as a prosecutor at the county level.

It also depends on whether you want someone with the courage to take independent stands apart from party politics and powerful officials.