‘Retaliation’: Vermont police chief, father says school district punishing him for speaking against biological male in girls’ locker room

By Mary Margaret Olohan | The Daily Signal

Another Vermont parent has told The Daily Signal that he believes the school district is punishing him for speaking out against a biological male using the girls’ locker room.

John Helfant is one of the volunteer coaches of the Randolph Union High School girls’ varsity soccer team, he said in a Wednesday phone interview. He said he has served as a police officer for 32 years and is the chief of police of the Northfield, Vermont, police department.

The Daily Signal

John Helfant speaks with The Daily Signal about his daughter’s experience when a trans-identified male entered her locker room.

Now he believes that because he spoke out against a biologically male student who identifies as transgender using the girls’ locker room, the school district superintendent is using a technicality to prevent him from continuing to coach the varsity girls’ soccer team.

The father of three spoke out in an interview with The Daily Signal team last week outside of a school forum where community members aired their thoughts on a biologically male 14-year-old student using the girls’ locker room while the girls were changing.

“We’ve been fighting for women’s rights as a nation 100 years at least,” Helfant said in the video interview. “I think this is an invasion of women’s rights, it’s just in a different form.”

On Monday afternoon, according to emails reviewed by The Daily Signal, Superintendent Layne Millington emailed Helfant to inform him that the district does not have a record of Helfant “completing the background check procedure, specifically the fingerprinting check.”

“Beginning immediately and continuing until this matter is resolved, you cannot volunteer in any role or for any activity within the OSSD,” the superintendent said, emails show.

Helfant responded to the superintendent: “I will take this as retaliation for my comments against the OSSD and will be informing my attorney.”

“As you know I am a police officer of 32yrs,” he continued. “I obviously have no criminal record or would not have been able to retire from the State Police nor would I still be Chief of Police in Northfield if I did.”

Helfant also told Millington that he submitted the proper paperwork and fingerprints, adding, “If there is a paperwork snafu it is with your people as I provided them with all required paperwork.”

In a phone interview with The Daily Signal, Helfant said that he had fingerprinted himself—which he told Millington officers do “regularly” at his employment—filled out the paperwork, and turned it into the Randolph Union High School front desk.

“My belief is they’re upset about me being outspoken and they wanted to find a way to get me off the field,” Helfant said.

Millington told The Daily Signal that Helfant “is not an employee and hence cannot be disciplined by the district.” He pointed The Daily Signal to an email in which he told Helfant, “No one works or volunteers in the district without full background checks.”

“We receive an actual letter with the results when they have completed their check,” he told Helfant. “It sounds like based on the conversation you had with the secretary, that you were trying to run your fingerprints yourself. There are select locations that do this type of check and who ensure all the paperwork is together at that time so it all gets to the right place. It sounds like you did not follow this process or go to one of those centers – hence the probable hang up.”

The school superintendent, who has claimed that coverage of the girls’ pushback has sparked hatred and bigotry toward both the trans-identifying student and the school district, also accused The Daily Signal of asking “inaccurate” questions and said he would no longer be responding.

In a Wednesday email to the school district community, Millington canceled all Randolph Union High School and district-level open forums, including a Thursday forum, accusing “local members of the community” of reaching “out to groups around the country to try and stir anger against the district.”

“We have again had several threatening phone calls from across the United States,” he said in the email. “While there are no credible threats, out of an abundance of caution we have ramped up security around the district.”

Chris Hurley, another Randolph Union High School father, told The Daily Signal that canceling the meeting has “nothing to do with security.”

“As momentum grows for his removal, he’s trying to control the narrative and cancels his own forum that allows us to speak directly to him and more importantly the community members that he has hoodwinked into believing that the girls’ parents are mere transphobes and hateful bigots for wanting their children safe,” Hurley said. “Again, Layne and his admin have shown contempt for the very community they are hired to serve. People are growing extremely frustrated with his iron fist style of governance.”

School officials have cited state law allowing for students to use locker rooms and bathrooms that align with their stated gender identity. These officials say that they care about everyone’s safety and that Randolph Union High School is investigating whether harassment took place when the girls told their biologically male classmate not to come into their locker room while they were changing.

Parents who spoke with The Daily Signal last week said neither Millington nor the school forum focused on the most pressing matter at hand: their daughters’ discomfort at having a biologically male student in the locker room able to observe them while they are changing.

In a previous interview with The Daily Signal, Helfant cited Vermont’s voyeurism statute, which states that “no person shall intentionally view, photograph, film, or record in any format” the “intimate areas of another person without that person’s knowledge and consent and under circumstances in which the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

“There are no exemptions for schools,” he said, emphasizing that it is “clearly a law violation for a male student to view, watch a female student change her bra or underwear in a women’s locker room or bathroom.”

“My entire life, there’s been this fight for women’s rights and equal pay,” Helfant added. “Guys are literally attacking women’s rights that have been fought so hard for since, you know, the last 100 years, since the suffragettes and to the present time. So it just doesn’t make any sense to me. And I don’t understand why more people aren’t speaking out against it.”

Millington also suspended Travis Allen without pay from his position as the coach of the middle school girls’ soccer team for using male pronouns to refer to the trans-identifying student. That suspension also followed the Daily Signal report highlighting Allen’s daughter’s discomfort at a biological male using her locker room while she was changing.

Allen’s daughter Blake is one of several young ladies who said they were in the Randolph Union High School locker room changing when the trans-identifying student, a biological male, entered the locker room.

Several girls who spoke with The Daily Signal said they asked the student to leave, but that the student did not immediately do so. The girls said the student stood in the corner and looked at them while they were changing, causing them to feel uncomfortable.

Allen offered to avoid using gender pronouns while communicating with trans-identifying students and to take down his social media post. But the school district demanded a public apology from Allen, which he refused, resulting in his suspension.

“When he asked me to publicly apologize, I thought about it,” Allen told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “I did pause and waited a few seconds. And I’m thinking, ‘If I say that I’ll apologize, I’ll be able to coach my youngest daughter for the rest of the season, but I’m going to, in turn, hurt my other daughter, because I’m not standing up for what we believe in, I’m just cowing to them like so many other people have done. And I just can’t do that.’”

Image courtesy of The Daily Signal

9 thoughts on “‘Retaliation’: Vermont police chief, father says school district punishing him for speaking against biological male in girls’ locker room

  1. Why did this male (female wanna-be) go in the locker room if s/he wasn’t even showering or changing‽‽
    This crap is out of control!

  2. The Vermont educational system has demonstrated that it is utterly woke and anti-female. It is true there are laws protecting troubled youths who claim to be a sex they are not. However I am certain there are other laws protecting women from being unwilling performers in a strip show. It is sad that Vermont ignores them in favor of their abusers, Where is Title 9 today?

  3. If parents want to take back control of their schools in their own school districts, there is a simple way to get started, and it WILL work. Put the school levy part of property taxes back on the ballot and threaten to repeal that levy IF the School Board, the teachers, and the administrators don’t start to listen and collaborate better with parents. Nothing works better in the world we live in than the threat of not getting money! It’s not that hard to do either. Voters have rights and with enough signatures on a proposal to put a school levy back on the next ballot, the State has to comply. Research it. Even the threat can work to make our schools better and make sure that our kids are getting real eduation, not indoctrination. I grew up in Vermont and I got a magnificent education there. Let’s make sure our kids do as well !

  4. John Helfant is correct, he is being targeted. Time for Vermonters north to south to clean out their governments, local and state, school boards, global warming initiative board types, ministers not preaching the values of freedom and family, and take our state back.

  5. This case proves Yuri Bezmaov’s case that America is being subverted and Vermont is subverted.

    Where is the press? No where to be found. – Subverted
    Where is the medical Establishment? No where to be found – Subverted
    Where is the political Establishment? No where to be found = Subverted
    Where is the justice system? No where to be found – Subverted
    Where are the religious leaders? No where to be found – Subverted
    Where are the educational leaders and system? No where to be found – Subverted
    Where are the lobbyists/non profits? No where to be found – Subverted

    Sun Tzu – We must understand the terrain upon which we are fighting. Vermont is not operating under a constitutional republic. We are a subverted state. Until the Vermont citizenry understands that nothing can change. Many in Vermont do under stand this, they refer to us a Socialist Republic of Vermont, the Vermont CCP..etc. There are 112,704 Vermonters who have an understanding of what IS going in within our borders.

    They, the United Nations, the Globalist cabal, the uniparty want us to think we are fighting Dem vs. Repub…..that we are fighting brother vs. brother, because they win if we fall for that.

    No, the proper battle lines are God fearing Americans vs. The Uniparty, the uniparty hell bent on power, money, sex and corruption. Until the leaders in Vermont define the proper battle lines of contention, until the citizenry understands what is going on, there is little hope.

    We will continue to be the Spartan slaves in Rome. We will continue to be crushed by our subverted state, all the while thinking we are free men and women. We need to free ourselves from the bondage of slavery, of our sins, of greed, fighting (pride), power, money, corruption, sex….

    And we only need to change our direction, realize where we are, to ask for forgiveness and it shall be given. Our state (personal and literal) can be changed peacefully, easily and with love. We can’t change anything if we don’t know where we are and what to do. TGBTG

  6. This should be a wake up call that something is terribly, terribly wrong in Vermont.

    If an 18 year old male who didn’t claim to be trans gender did this, they would be in jail.
    If an 18 year old male who didn’t claim to be trans gender, changed in locker room, he would be in jail.

    NO teacher can come to these girls aid, they will be fired and career ruined never to be able to teach in our state again.

    There are teams of people, lawyers, organizations working behind the scenes no to cancel this good mans career, there is no doubt.

    No democrat, or liberal can speak up within the party because they will be canceled and expelled by the marxists who run the party.

    No state employee can stand up for these women, because their carreer will be ended also.

    This is the modern appian way. The appian way was a major military and trade route. This is where they would crucify people who went against the governments wishes so all could see what happens.

    While wiki is not a reliable source of information….here is their quote of notable events..

    Notable historical events along the road
    The crucifixion of Spartacus’ army

    Emperor Trajan built a deviation of Via Appia. This is a tract of Via Appia Traiana near Egnatia.

    The column in Brindisi, marking the end of the Via Appia
    Further information: Third Servile War
    In 73 BC, a slave revolt (known as the Third Servile War) under the ex-gladiator of Capua, Spartacus, began against the Romans. Slavery accounted for roughly every third person in Italy.

    Spartacus defeated many Roman armies in a conflict that lasted for over two years. While trying to escape from Italy at Brundisium he unwittingly moved his forces into the historic trap at Apulia in Calabria.[clarification needed] The Romans were well acquainted with the region. Legions were brought home from abroad and Spartacus was pinned between armies. The ex-slave army was defeated at the Siler River by Marcus Licinius Crassus. Pompey’s armies captured and killed several thousand rebels that escaped from the battle and Crassus captured several thousand more. The Romans judged that the slaves had forfeited their right to live. In 71 BC, 6,000 slaves were crucified along the 200-kilometer (120 mi) Via Appia from Rome to Capua.[19]

    This is Vermont, under the thumb of Marxist rule, expect we ruin careers instead.

    You won’t find the VTGOP sticking up for you either, see the Marxist rule goes by another name too, it’s called…..the uniparty.

    Our governor will stand by and watch this man’s career be ruined. He’s captain uniparty.

    This won’t get mentioned in the election debates either.

    There is something terribly, terribly, wrong in Vermont.

    • The solution is not what most would think.

      There are forces that Rome could not crush.
      There are forces that corrupt religions could not crush.
      There are forces that makes every dictator quake in their boots.
      There are forces that can’t be spoken in any dictator’s country, they fear it.
      There are forces that make an atomic bomb look like child’s play.
      There are quiet words that can be spoken to bring truth and love.

      These are the forces we should know, fear, follow and love.
      TGBTG

  7. See how they play, want me to find out what page its on in Rules for Radicals? Next they will be calling for the firing of some people, holding press conferences…..filing lawsuits. They are extremely well organized and even more predictable. These people operate on fear.

    All the women need to leave the team immediately.

    The gentleman in the girl’s locker room can play by himself; he’s clearly enjoying it and loving the attention. Walk away, they want the fight.

    Next time he’s in the locker room laugh at his penis, it will work no matter what sex he believes he is. Yet if any other male went into the locker room and showed their penis they would be arrested. How does that work? Yeah….lunatics.

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