Palo Alto Unified says battle over gender-neutral bathrooms is a misunderstanding

An effort to construct all-gender bathrooms at a Palo Alto Unified School District elementary school has sparked outrage among families, but district officials say it’s all a misunderstanding.

The dust-up started when parents claimed they heard the district planned to implement only gender-neutral bathrooms on Herbert Hoover Elementary School’s new campus – a $54 million renovation project that will construct four new buildings by 2026. They swiftly took action, with nearly 20 students and parents expressing their concerns at a district board meeting and a petition, which now has more than 1,200 signatures, demanding the district construct both gender-neutral and gender-specific bathrooms on the new campus.

“Defying our societal norms and only offering a gender-neutral restroom creates a non-inclusive, unsafe and unhygienic environment that is insensitive to the religious and cultural needs of a historically diverse Hoover community,” the petition argued.

A handful of elementary school students who spoke at the board meeting said they didn’t feel comfortable using the multi-stall, all-gender bathrooms at the temporary Hoover campus, located at Greendell School. Instead, students and their parents said the elementary children refuse to use the bathroom at school because of the lack of privacy and allegedly dirty conditions.

“I do not like that we have to share a bathroom with boys,” one third grader said at the board meeting. “When I come to the bathroom, I do not like that there is pee on the seats and toilet paper on the ground. It feels very uncomfortable.”

But in a letter to families this week, the district’s superintendent, Don Austin, said Palo Alto Unified is not requiring all restrooms at Hoover to be gender-neutral and designs are intended to allow for flexibility.

“I’d like to clarify our situation and assure you that we are committed to offering a range of restroom options that meet the needs of all students and families,” Austin wrote.

The district’s board of education approved updated design standards for gender-neutral bathrooms in 2021 after a committee met and reviewed the plans for several months, said the district’s public information officer, Lynette White. Austin added that the design standards focus on inclusivity and privacy, featuring full-height partitions and eliminating urinals.

Austin said the Hoover campus is expected to open by early 2026, giving the district plenty of time to discuss bathroom designs with the school community.

A chat between families and the school’s principal about Hoover’s construction was scheduled for last week, but canceled last minute after the battle over the school’s bathrooms gained widespread media attention. The district said it was “not prepared” to keep the conversation on track.

In his message, Austin said the district would host small-group conversations with Hoover families to ensure concerns are addressed.

“Restrooms will be designated based on additional input from school communities during construction projects and we expect to have a mix of gender-specific and gender-neutral restrooms in all our schools,” he assured families.

In addition to concerns about the new campus, the parent-led petition claims there are no gender-separated boys and girls restrooms on the current campus, just multi-stall, gender-neutral bathrooms.

But the district said there are both single-gender and all-gender bathrooms at the Greendell campus. District officials said the campus has five all-girls stalls and two-all boys stalls with three urinals, as well as four single occupancy – or unisex – bathrooms. The gender-neutral bathrooms are multi-stall, with five stalls, the district added.

The battle comes as a number of state and federal gender policies have made waves in school communities.

A handful of California cities and school districts have pushed back against recent state legislation that stops school districts from notifying parents if their child uses different pronouns or identifies as a different gender than what’s on their school record. And hundreds of schools in the state, including several in the Bay Area, have been caught in a national battle over new sexual harassment regulations which extend protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation in 2023 that requires all schools to offer at least one all-gender bathroom for students by July 1, 2026.

Palo Alto Unified said its plans to implement gender-neutral bathrooms across the district are not in response to that law – Senate Bill 760 – but have been in the works for years.