Teacher escapes losing job for discussing student’s gender identity

South Florida Sun Sentinel | By Scott Travis | April 27, 2022

A South Florida high school teacher who almost lost her job for discussing a student’s gender identity in class should be able to stay in the classroom, a state judge ruled this week.

The case is a twist on Florida’s “don’t say gay” controversy, which has focused on whether teachers will be silenced from making supportive comments about gay and transgender people.

This teacher, Vally Jan-Louis Bastien of Miami-Dade County, was disciplined for sharing information with her class that disparaged a male transgender student — confidential school records that listed him as a female.

The incident happened in December 2018 in a French class at Southridge High in Miami, where a lesson on masculine and feminine pronouns led to a class discussion about the student’s gender.

The Miami-Dade school district initially started dismissal proceedings against Bastien, but ultimately decided in April 2019 to suspend her for nine months. She now teaches world languages at Frank C. Martin K-8 in Miami, where she makes $63,101, according to the district.

The state Department of Education reviewed her case and took steps in 2020 to revoke her education license for two years, which would had made her ineligible to teach.

Bastien appealed, and this week, an administrative law judge ruled that the state’s discipline was too harsh. The judge has recommended she instead be placed on probation for two years, pay a $500 fine and take a class on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The recommendation is non-binding, but Bastien told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that she and the state have agreed to the judge’s decision.

“After 36 years of teaching, this was the first time something like this happened,” she said. “They’ve decided to observe me for two years and then let it go.”

A Department of Education spokeswoman said she was looking into the matter but didn’t provide a comment.

The incident started when the teacher first referred to a transgender boy in a class by a French pronoun that means “he,” wrote Robert Kilbride, an administrative law judge hearing the case.

“Another student objected saying that [the student] was a ‘her,’” the judge wrote, but the boy corrected that student saying “he was a guy.” A class debate ensued.

Bastien “stumbled into a debate with the students regarding a topic about which she was sadly uninformed and ill-prepared to handle,” Kilbride wrote.

The teacher attempted to resolve the issue by pulling up the student’s personal data from school district records and sharing with the class, a violation of district policy, court documents show. The records listed the student as a female.

The student “was mortified for the remainder of the class. To reflect his feeling being humiliated before his classmates and to vent his anxiety [the student] sketched a figure which demonstrated his emotional dilemma,” Charles Whitelock, a lawyer for the state education commissioner, wrote in court files.

“The sketch reflects the humiliation and embarrassment noting, ‘Don’t look at me. Stop looking. Please,’” Whitelock wrote.

The student stopped attending the class and sought help from a school counselor, records show.

The state also accused Bastien of discussing her religion in class, saying homosexuality was a sin and that “homosexuals go to hell,” according to a complaint. However, Bastien denied these allegations, and the judge found them unsubstantiated.

The judge said revoking the teacher’s license was too harsh because she’s taught for 36 years, 24 in Miami-Dade County, and the other 12 in Haiti.

She’s never had any other discipline issues before or after this incident, and she’d already faced a nine-month suspension from Miami-Dade schools, he wrote.

The case predates the controversy over the Parental Rights in Education law passed by the Legislature last month. The law, dubbed by critics as “don’t say gay,” will prohibit discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3 starting next school year.

Any discussions in grades 4 to 12 must be “age-appropriate,” and parents can sue a district if they believe a teacher has violated the law. While critics say the law could be used to stop teachers from openly supporting LGBTQ students, this case may provide an example of how it could also be used by students who encounter anti-LGBTQ messages.

Bastien told the Sun Sentinel she had no idea that the student in her class was transitioning and holds no ill will toward LGBTQ people.

“It wasn’t my intention to harm the kid,” she said. “They’re free to choose what they ought to be.”