South Carolina teachers required to handle LGBTQ+ issues in the classroom for 2024 school year

SOUTH CAROLINA (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — South Carolina teachers aren’t happy with the new mandates handed down by state education leaders. Under the new law, healthcare workers may not conduct any gender-affirming care for minors.

School employees would also be required to “out” trans or nonbinary students to parents if their child wants to use a name, nickname, or pronouns that do not correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

“We’re just very concerned about that because we know a lot of these students that experience these types of things are often disowned by their families. They’re often abused or kicked out. They’re homeless. So, we would be very concerned about the safety of the LGBT community should you call home and do harm,” said Sherry East, president of the South Carolina Education Association.

But state leaders haven’t given districts a complete policy. East says teachers are on a “wait and see” basis.

“In one bill, they said teachers can have any kind of training on this but weren’t allowed to have training on it. And then the bill passes that says you now have to identify and report these things and you’re not even sure you could know exactly what’s going on with all of it,” East said.

South Carolina teachers must also monitor which books are in their classrooms. They say lawmakers implemented one of the most restrictive book ban regulations in the U.S.

It requires all reading material to be “age or developmentally appropriate”.

“I buy diverse books. I buy books about children with disabilities. I buy books about children of different ethnicities. It’s important that our children can read books with characters that look like them that they can identify with,” said Dena R. Crews, an elementary school literacy coach and teacher in the Florence County school system. She’s also the Vice President of the Education Association.

She doesn’t buy books she knows students won’t understand.

Any parent with a child enrolled in a public K–12 school in the state can challenge up to five titles a month if they feel they violate the mandate.

“Complex things will cause them to grow. It will cause them to become critical thinkers. And in the long run, is that not what we want for our students, for them to be critical thinkers, to be able to question, ask questions about things, and on their own thoughts from what they’re learning?” Crews asked.