At his weekly press conference, Gov. Phil Scott spoke about teen girls being banned from the girls locker room following a dispute about a transgender student on the Randolph Union High School volleyball team.
“I don’t have all the details on that issue, I’ve heard different accounts,” the governor said. “I will say this, we have to be open-minded, understanding, with empathy, and to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and to try and take the hate out of this entire situation.”
Scott continued to take a strategy of calling for understanding from both sides.
Gov. Phil Scott
“Whatever we do as we move forward, we need to make sure that we do so without all of the divisiveness that we are seeing,” he said. “… I just think we all have an obligation to dial down the rhetoric and listen to the details and the facts.”
Other officials in the administration were pressed by a reporter about if they will support parents who don’t feel comfortable having a biological male in the girls’ locker room.
Education Secretary Dan French implied that schools currently have policies in place to handle these types of situations.
“Certainly I think school districts have the required policies to address these types of issues — discrimination in any form is illegal and not to be tolerated in schools,” French said. He said policy goals for these issues are “to ensure that student rights are protected but also that due process procedures are followed to do a proper investigation of the claims.”
French insisted that they are listening and that they can deal with these conflicts.
“I totally understand that,” he said. “Again, school districts have options on how to implement these kinds of concepts.”
Focused on trades
During the opening of the conference, the governor focused on career paths for Vermonters in the trades.
“I think as a state we can do a better job promoting the career path making our kids aware of the opportunities earlier,” he said. “… You’ve heard us talk a lot about the billions we’re investing in the coming years in coming years in housing, broadband, water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure, roads and bridges, and more.”
The governor talked more about how Vermont struggles with demographics particularly when it comes to its workforce. He stressed the importance of joining the trades in today’s economy.
“To me, it’s just as important, valuable, and impressive to become an electrician, a welder, or EMT, or get a CDL as it is to get an Ivy League education,” he said.
French shared some statistics regarding the trades in Vermont.
“32% of Vermont juniors and seniors participated in CTE [Career Technical Education], so about a third of our students,” he said. He added that 25% of their graduates are in post-secondary credentials in their programs.
He said that 93% of graduates of their CTE programs end up either in the military, college, or post-secondary training by October of the year following their graduation.
Some data according to the state’s Department of Labor includes that construction accounts for 5.2 percent of all statewide employment. Also, the average annual wage for construction workers is $57,635, which is above the statewide average wage of $56,264. Also, construction companies account for about 10 percent of all businesses in Vermont.
Labor Deputy Commissioner Dustin Degree commented on how demand for these types of workers has risen substantially.
“Anyone who has needed the services of a skilled contractor in the last few years, understands the importance of highlighting and supporting this important sector of our economy, as well as helping to educate folks on just how lucrative and rewarding these careers are for those who chose to pursue a job in the trades,” he said.
Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.
God created the biological male…God created the biological woman…all other genders were created by Democrats, aka Dimmo, Dummo, and Damno…crats
How come Phil never begs to “turn down the rhetoric”….when so many others are vicious, lying, false and defamatory against Trump, MAGA or any conservative? When will Phil ask Pelosi, Schumer et al….. to “turn it down” (hint? Never). How come he never asks CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, Wa Po, NPR – or even Vt digger? Phil just wants to “make nice”…but on a one way control….. Democrat Liberal street?
Dear Governor Phil,
Can you get pregnant?
Sincerely,
Vermont Biology Teacher
ps. Is science now rhetoric?
Re: “Certainly I think school districts have the required policies to address these types of issues — discrimination in any form is illegal and not to be tolerated in schools,”…
Regardless of where you may stand on this issue, it is abundantly clear that our public schools are in a state of anarchy, reflective of the elected and appointed government in general. Rules, such as they are, are discriminatory no matter how and to whom they’re applied. Public school staff are protected no matter what they require of their students. As a former public school board member, I can assure anyone contemplating an internal reordering of the public schools that ‘getting your butt in the school’ is akin to jousting with windmills.
The problem is in determining what we are ‘supposed to’ regard, or ‘supposed to’ teach, or ‘supposed to’ do, or ‘supposed to’ think. This entire issue would resolve itself if parents were allowed to choose the education process that best meets the needs of their own children. With that choice, parents could abide by some form of chosen governance, or their chosen culture or faith, or one of infinite other social orders that may come to mind. But the fact that I, for example, agree with you, shouldn’t give either of us the right to force any ideology on someone else or some other group – UNLESS of course the actions of one, or one group, breaches the constitutional rights of others.
No matter what our sentiments are, the public-school monopoly breaches our constitutional rights in virtually every way possible by its mere existence.
It may seem difficult to consider homeschooling at first blush. But parents must homeschool their children to avoid this chaos. And that doesn’t mean you have to stay home and teach the children yourselves. Do some research. Think outside the box. Be imaginative. Be innovative. Learn. Most of all, be safe. Your children are counting on you.
Appears it’s time to create another committee, task force, council, or board to dictate and govern the “appropriate response” to this problem.
lol, that’s pretty good. my guess it will have a hint of socialism with Marxist overtones, and an after taste of globalism
I agree with the other commenters scotty is talking to the no boys who think they
are a girl should be in the GIRLS locker room. He is siding with a single gender
confused person against the Majority of the female population of the school. I was
reading the article in 7 days about this and the mother of the trans is whining that
the real GIRLS are bulling her poor thinks it’s a girl and the story seemed to take
their side. NO one should be forced to be uncomfortable in a changing room or bathroom and this is apparently doing just that. Just more destruction to our society caused by the commie leftest obama and continued with his current puppet biden…
The insanity of the locker room issue has it’s basis in the absurd and destructive belief that an altered male athlete can fairly and objectively compete with highly trained and prepared unaltered female athletes.
Consider the support infrastructure traditionally involved in creating successful athletes: coaches, various specialist trainers and dietary regimens, gymnasiums and training facilities, school and private sponsors and benefactors, and many other agents and contributors. The aggregate effort is continual improvement of the athlete, specifically to develop and sustain his or her physical and mental capabilities and unique athletic skills to the highest possible degree and potential with the proof of achievement being his or her success at winning competitions.
Consider the support infrastructure necessary to create a female athlete from a male:
Many of the above except with the inclusion of a wide variety of medical specialists and others whose aggregate effort is to create the exact opposite of the above. Their objective is not to enhance the physical capabilities, performance and skills of the male body but to detune it, manipulate and alter it with chemicals, surgery, various therapies etc, etc to achieve a tenuous and highly subjective state of equivalency with the female athlete with whom they are unethically allowed to compete.
Two major problems: first, and foremost, there is no objective means to effect, measure and sustain an objective physical equivalency between an altered male and an unaltered female. Equivalency can only fairly and objectively be measured between comparable specimens. Lead cannot be made into gold. An apple can never be an orange. Altering a specimen and presenting it as the same as the specimen with which it is being compared or competing is cheating, false representation, and wholly unethical. And it is a world more egregious when knowingly done.
Second major problem: the female athletes have sought to improve, tune and perfect their physical attributes and athletic skills without chemistry, surgery and other means which have long been unethical and illegal. In what world are these means valid and legal when used to destroy a male’s physical capabilities?
The multitude of highly destructive social, political and legal consequences flowing from this disastrous delusion are too numerous and mind boggling, yet it persists and continues to gain acceptance and the approval of many formerly “prestigious” institutions.
The solution to this problem? Title X: transsexual federal athletic protections.
If females can have their own federal, athletic Title IX protections, so can transsexuals. FWIW
No XY should be present while XXs are changing clothes.
Hey Phil, how would you address if your daughter was one of the young girls in that locker room?
Scott said, “To me, it’s just as important, valuable, and impressive to become an electrician, a welder, or EMT, or get a CDL as it is to get an Ivy League education,” he said. I agree. College degrees rapidly are becoming useless. Good luck getting that tech job if you’re a stoner. Most skilled trades require drug testing. For example, a CDL with Hazmat is very desirable, but no reputable trucking firm wants a stoned driver who could kill a lot of people in a very short time and leave the company bankrupt. The biggest problem many companies have in Vermont is finding someone who can pass the drug screening. But I suspect many politicians and “professionals” don’t have such a worry. Hmm.
So true Steve.
I have tried to find a contractor to do work at my home (my wonderful wonderfully able and perfect contractor retired last year) and I cannot find anyone, NO ONE! I tried everyone in my area (Upper Valley) and many have quit residential work and only taking commercial jobs. Kids need to know that the trade skills are valuable jobs that will be more necessary that some barista when things get tough, and they are going to get tough.
Oh, and politicians are part of that crew of stoned people you are referring to, many of them alcoholics or drug users and they are just really well protected and it is hidden from view.
I could say more but I won’t.
Cheers
Phil Scott – Waffle King, with the rare ability of speaking while saying absolutely nothing.
Pick a side and defend it for once.
He can’t make his dem/progs mad just prior to election. The man speaks with a folk tongue. Waffle King is an apt name. The man can’t even admit there are two genders and they can’t be switched no matter what you cut off or add. Mother nature determines gender, not man!
Which rhetoric does he expect to be “dialed down”? Probably only that which opposes the whole gender nonsense. Remember the theme song from “All in the Family” where Archie and Edith Bunker sang, “And you knew who you were then. Goils were goils and men were men”?
Those were the days…
Scott says ‘dial down the rhetoric and listen’ why, this should be front and center and the
parents should be appalled, as girls are banned from the school locker room over this
transgender dispute, the only dispute is why was this fruitcake changing with young girls
the school staff should be fired !!
Who knows what the intention was, he’s physically a male, with male genitalia watching all
the young girls changing, now does that sound normal ??
I know what comes to my mind if he/ she was 18, he/she would be in jail with the rest of the
perverts…………
Just more liberal nonsense for one mentally deranged student that caused this BS, he/she
needs a special changing room at a minimum, or us the boy locker room, as they have the
same genitalia !!
Boys are Boys, and Girls are Girls, everything else is a figment of one’s imagination