Far-Right School Board Says It Is Installing Windows In Gender-Inclusive Bathrooms

A Pennsylvania middle school is installing windows in its gender-inclusive restrooms that will allow teachers and students to look into the wash areas from the hallways.

The far-right South Western School District board approved the construction project at Hanover’s Emory H Markle Middle School this summer.

The school board president, Matt Gelazela, cited student safety for the decision. In a statement released to the media, he wrote that “in making the area outside of stalls more viewable, we are better able to monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism.”

The board said that it would “create openings” to add “privacy in the toilet area” and “increase oversight of the wash area.” Gelazela added that these changes put the restrooms in line with facilities in the local elementary schools.

Gelazela, a libertarian and former police officer, became politically active with the South Western School District board in 2021, fighting COVID-19 mask mandates and railing against schools teaching students about “sexual identity.”

The new restroom windows at Markle Middle School are being built only into the gender-inclusive bathrooms and are set to cost the district roughly $8,700. The school currently has five bathroom options. The Hanover Evening Sun wrote that these include “male, female, male gender identifying, female gender identifying, and single-stall private bathrooms.”

Gelazela did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.

The construction of the bathroom windows has outraged parents and LGBTQ+ advocates alike, who see it as a privacy infringement for students and a specific targeting of LGBTQ+ youth.

Jennifer Holahan, a parent of a student in the