Guilty plea
Sports return
Son will testify against mom in homicide
Champlain Valley athletes take the field
Page 4
Page 11
Volume 52 Number 37
CVU school district crafts transgender guidelines
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shelburnenews.com
September 14, 2023
Dark shadows
COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER
The Champlain Valley School District is crafting policy to affirm the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming students, one of the first policies of its kind among Vermont’s more than 90 school districts, board members said. Since last winter, the district’s policy committee has been working on writing the policy. While much of the district-specific policy was adopted from the 2017 Vermont Agency of Education guidelines, committee members made it a point to insert affirmative language that transgender students, or gender non-conforming students, have a right under the policy to be permitted to use a locker room or restroom that aligns with the student’s gender identity. “There’s such a really dangerous and negative movement in the country broadly — not so much in Vermont, but we’re not immune to the pressures and even coordinated campaigns that take place in other states and other districts,” Angela Arsenault, chair of the Champlain Valley School Board, said. “We have our equity policy, but we couldn’t say that it explicitly addresses any concerns that might come up around transgender students and gender non-conforming students. We felt it was important to do that.” The policy, if adopted, would require the district use a student’s preferred name and gender on all school records, and that student participate in school activities, like sports teams, that are in line with their gender identity. “We have very intentionally put affirmative language that transgender students, or gender non-conforming students, have a right under this policy to be permitted See POLICY on page 12
PHOTO BY LEE KROHN
A recent sunset casts a shadow at Meach Cove.
Woodworker finds meaning in his craft LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
“I worked at an office block in London, a really dreadful, dreary office overlooking the Thames, and I sat there thinking, ‘There’s just got to be more to life than this,’” John Lomas said, his thick British accent seeping through a toothy grin, mirroring eyes that smiled along with it. His woodshop in Hinesburg — built entirely by his own two hands — sits picturesquely off Shelburne Falls Road on a hill overlooking Camels Hump, and on any given day the piercing sound of wood tools can be heard. But his success as an independent woodworker and furniture maker is one that took a whole lifetime to create, and now, as the years pass, he can’t help but wonder who
might be willing to take over his legacy. Like most creative endeavors, his passion for woodworking came mostly from a childhood distaste for academics, and partially from finding solace in the part of the school day that focused on workshops and extracurriculars. “I went to an English boarding school where I found the usual run-of-the-mill academics didn’t suit me particularly brilliantly,” he said, sifting through pieces of scrap wood, thoroughly inspecting each one between breaths. “I used to spend a lot of time in the workshops, and whenever I had a spare minute, that’s where I’d be.” But as he grew older, the everyday pressure to secure a steady job kept creative pursuits on the back burner. “I left school and I thought, ‘I’m supposed to be a professional in some kind
of way.’ I come from a family of lawyers,” he said. “Then one day, I remembered how much I loved being in the workshops at school, and I picked it up again in my mid-20s. I haven’t looked back since.” So he dropped the business attire and went back to school to the London College of Furniture for two years before attending the West Dean College in Sussex for antique restoration. “I did an apprenticeship in an antique dealers’ workshop for a couple more years,” Lomas recounted. “Then a partner and I set out to the West Country of England, and we started our own restoration business, traveled around visiting all the antique dealers picking up pieces.” See LOMAS on page 12