A former Montgomery County Public Schools substitute teacher has filed a lawsuit against the district and the school board, alleging she was denied a religious accommodation that would have kept her from having to follow the district’s gender identity guidelines concerning students.
The lawsuit filed by Kimberly Ann Polk of Gaithersburg on May 21 in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt also alleges the school district violated her free exercise and free speech rights.
According to the complaint, Polk is seeking monetary damages of an unspecified amount in compensation for lost wages and attorney’s fees and expenses. In addition, Polk’s lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction “allowing her to continue to substitute teach in classrooms in which students who are transitioning genders are not enrolled.” She also wants MCPS to declare it violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and her rights of free speech and free exercise of religion.
The suit was filed one day after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging the MCPS gender identity guidelines that provide support for transgender students.
Parents who filed that lawsuit alleged that the guidelines, which advise staff not to disclose a student’s stated gender to their parents without permission, violated federal laws such as the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). They also argued the guidelines violated their constitutional rights to “direct the care, custody, education, and control of their minor children,” according to court records.
Polk is represented by attorney Rick Claybrook of Washington, D.C.-based law firm Claybrook LLC, who also represented the parents who sought to bring their case before the Supreme Court after it was dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in August 2022.
Claybrook said Monday that he expects the motion for preliminary injunction to be briefed this summer before school starts in late August so that Polk can resume working for the district. The lawsuit asks the court to issue a preliminary injunction against MCPS that would allow Polk to return to work as a substitute teacher.
A briefing schedule and argument date haven’t been scheduled and a trial date has not been set, according to Claybrook.
When contacted by MoCo360 about Polk’s lawsuit, MCPS officials said they couldn’t comment on ongoing litigation.
“MCPS is committed to providing a safe, welcoming learning environment for all students,” school board spokeswoman Christie Scott wrote in an email Friday. “We cannot comment on specific active personnel legal matters.”
In her lawsuit, Polk also took issue with the guidelines requiring teachers to “assist children as young as three to transition gender at school and to hide this transitioning from the child’s parents if MCPS officials believe the parents might not be ‘supportive,’ ” the complaint stated.
Polk, who declined to comment Monday through Claybrook, began working as a part-time substitute teacher for MCPS in the 2021-2022 school year. During that time, Polk worked at eight elementary schools and intended to continue substitute teaching for MCPS the following school year, according to the complaint.
To retain her substitute teaching position for the 2022-2023 school year, “MCPS instructed Polk to review several interactive, instructional videos, including those about MCPS policies and procedures,” the complaint stated. One of the instructional videos was about the MCPS Gender Identity Guidelines, which asks educators to electronically sign an affirmation that they understand the video and would “fully adhere to the guidelines.”
According to the complaint, due to Polk’s “sincerely held religious beliefs, she was not able to affirm that she would adhere” to the guidelines.
The complaint stated that based on Polk’s understanding of Christianity and the Bible, she believes that “God created individuals as either male or female” and it would be unethical to assist children “to present as other than their God-given sex.”
In addition, the complaint stated that based on her religious beliefs it would be unethical for her to “hide from parents that their child is transitioning gender at school” and “to assist a child of one sex to use the restroom of the opposite sex while others of the opposite sex were present.”
According to the complaint, in November 2022 Polk submitted a request for accommodation regarding the gender identity guidelines and spoke with an MCPS compliance coordinator about potential accommodations due to not signing the training waiver.
In December 2022, MCPS rejected Polk’s request for accommodation and she has consequently been unable to teach during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years. The complaint stated that her inability to continue to substitute teach for the district has “resulted in a negative financial impact” on Polk and her family.
According to the lawsuit, Polk filed an employment discrimination complaint in August 2023 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging the district “failed to provide her an accommodation of her sincerely held religious beliefs as required by Title VII.”
In response to the EEOC complaint, MCPS filed a statement defending its decision, saying that the guidelines “reflected policies of significant importance” to the district, the complaint stated. In addition, the statement said MCPS would consider accommodation for Polk that would allow her not to sign the affirmation but require her to follow the guidelines when working.
“MCPS’s proffered ‘accommodation’ of allowing Ms. Polk not to assent in writing to the policies that offend her religious beliefs but to violate them in practice is no accommodation at all, but a demonstration of MCPS’s bias and hostility to Ms. Polk’s religious beliefs and practices and compels her to choose between her job and being true to her religious beliefs,” the complaint stated.
In April, Polk requested EEOC to issue a “right to sue” notice because it had been more than 180 days from the filing of her complaint with the commission. On April 12, EEOC issued Ms. Polk a “right to sue” notice, according to the lawsuit.
Claybrook told MoCo360 Monday the lawsuit boils down to “MCPS is saying that they don’t want anyone with traditional religious beliefs–certainly beliefs [that] the parents are the ones to make important life decisions for their minor children-–-to be working at the school.”
“That’s very troubling,” he said.
