Jeffco Schools Legal Department Activism Funded By Taxpayers

Dear Jeffco Leaders,

For the past few years, Jeffco Kids First has been working tirelessly to find solutions to one-sided Jeffco policies that honor each unique child and their family. We exposed unlawful gender surveys and with our federal policy adviser, successfully advocated to end those surveys in classrooms. We researched neighboring district policies and asked you to align.  You removed four elements of parental deception in JB-R1 Transgender Equal Opportunity Policy.  Our policy adviser Elizabeth Armstrong also asked you to align with Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) transgender sports placement by-laws.  You agreed and added a specific clause referencing alignment with CHSAA.  Our changes also led to accommodations for non-transgender students in bathrooms.  While we continue to have serious concerns about other unbalanced policies, we have been grateful for the constructive partnership on the issues where adjustments to accommodate all students were made. We have operated in good faith, hoping that Jeffco’s stated commitment to “belonging” for every student was indeed sincere. Our community of 10,000 supporters and followers (representing a variety of perspectives and every Jeffco School) stands behind our efforts and trusts us to advocate for reasonable solutions that genuinely open doors for all students while hurting none.  Jeffco Kids First has never veered from these principles.

But after this work, there was a shift.

Records showed Chief of Legal Julie Tolleson partnered with attorneys for the child who announced his biological sex to his assigned female bed partner on an overnight DC. trip. She accused parents of “hand-wringing over being assigned the wrong bed.”  Again, Ms. Tolleson advocated for one student while neglecting another who was placed in an impossible predicament as a ten-year-old child.

Ms. Tolleson was given multiple opportunities to negotiate a policy change that would notify parents and give them opportunity to opt out of mixed biological sex overnight situations.  Ms. Tolleson refused and an expensive federal lawsuit ensued at the burden of Jeffco’s taxpayers.  A balanced solution—one that would have opened doors for all students while harming none—was flatly rejected. The federal lawsuit remains focused on minor policy adjustments.

This is not neutral legal work on behalf of a district that serves 70,000 unique children. This is activism.  Here are a few indisputable facts that demonstrate why:

*Adams 12 Five Star Schools (next door to Jeffco) has adopted the very parental notification and opt-out policy that Jeffco forced into court.

*Jeffco successfully implemented the parental notification and opt-out policy now in litigation as recently as 2020 (before Julie Tolleson was hired).

*Jeffco Kids First captured a redline strikethrough during a policy review period showing existing accommodations for non-transgender students during overnight travel were completely removed. The adjustment was later formalized in policy.

*A federal judge recently questioned Jeffco’s outside counsel after the district argued that giving students the option to “stay home” from Outdoor Lab was an adequate accommodation for overnight situations involving mixed biological sex. The judge stated: “Question, is this just stigmatizing one group of students in order to save another group, from stigmatism? When these children have to, their parents have to opt them out, not knowing, not really having notice of whether they're going to be put in this position or not. But they can't take that risk, so the child either doesn't get to go or they've got to be picked up at night at the parents’ expense. That stigmatizes them on the basis of their religion.”

Despite claiming to champion “equal opportunity,” Jeffco’s legal team has consistently rejected reasonable, balanced overnight solutions that would open doors for all students while harming none.

Simultaneously, Jeffco Public Schools is undergoing a federal Title IX investigation concerning bathrooms and locker rooms, overnight travel, and sports teams. This investigation is fundamentally policy-driven. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has described the district’s Title IX violations as “sweeping.” Yet rather than addressing these core policy failures, Jeffco has chosen to distract with semantics and inflame an unnecessary culture war within our community.

The policy is not in dispute.  However, neither is the serious fallout:

Transgender bathroom issues are clearly acknowledged by Jeffco Schools:

Jeffco Kids First has provided you with a sampling of bathroom issues provided by Jeffco employees and Jeffco parents showing males peering over stalls at females taking care of their feminine hygiene, males taking advantage of restrooms in order to be intimate with their girlfriends and use drugs, females leaving campus to avoid males in restrooms, and small female children with limited ability to articulate their discomfort-being suddenly required to share restrooms with male peers.

Transgender overnight travel situations are clearly acknowledged by Jeffco Schools:

*High Schools recruited Outdoor Lab high school transgender leaders.

*Jeffco Google signups led Outdoor Lab high school leaders to select their bunking placement with 6th grade children based on their gender identity.

*After an influx of reports to uninformed parents from children returning home from Outdoor Lab, Jeffco frantically pieced together a Q&A with one slide entitled ,”Why is there a boy with my daughter at Outdoor Lab or overnight trip (or vice versa)?”

*One school leader emailed the district inquiring, “If a HSL or intern is transgender, what bunkhouse do they stay in, is it according to their gender on their birth certificate or is it by their choice?”

Jeffco legal disputes males on female sports teams while Jeffco employees and parents confirm it:

Jeffco’s rosters show “up to 61” males on female teams.  Even one female deprived of opportunity and privacy is cause for investigation.

Jeffco asserts that no female student is being deprived of athletic opportunities and that males participating on girls’ teams are merely serving as “mascots and managers.” District data, however, tells a different story. When broken down by sport, the majority of males on female teams are concentrated in girls’ cross country, girls’ soccer, and girls’ tennis. That amounts to a substantial number of cross country, soccer, and tennis “mascots and managers.” Conspicuously missing are comparable numbers of male “mascots and managers” in basketball, track and field, volleyball, and wrestling.

Jeffco’s legal defense and continued refusal to adjust policy rest on the claim that the district cannot track students’ biological sex. Yet the district simultaneously asserts that no female student is being deprived of athletic opportunity. These two positions are irreconcilable. How does Jeffco explain this contradiction?

CHSAA policy requires students to report when they have “a consistent gender identity different than the student’s gender assigned at birth” and to list the sanctioned events in which they wish to participate. CHSAA has also settled litigation by agreeing not to penalize Colorado districts that implement sports team policies based on biological sex. Jeffco has simply chosen not to pursue this available option.

Jeffco will have a difficult time disputing the documented facts and incidents. Perhaps this explains why the district has instead chosen to inflame a culture war, using “mascots and managers” as its catalyst.

Until Jeffco’s legal department moves away from activism and commits to uniting our community through policies that open doors for all children while harming none, its repeated claims of “belonging” will continue to ring hollow.

Solutions have always existed. Jeffco has simply chosen to reject them.

Chief of Legal Julie Tolleson must resign.

Lindsay Datko

Jeffco Kids First

Attend our gala with top US Title IX enforcer Harmeet Dhillon on August 6th! Details here: www.jeffcokidsfirst.com/gala