A Wisconsin mother filed suit against her children’s school district on Tuesday over an incident in which a teacher announced his gender transition to students in the form of a detailed spoken presentation without staff notifying or requesting consent from parents — the announcement was then shared throughout the district, including elementary schools.
Filed by Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) and parent Leah Buchman, the lawsuit petitions the Eau Claire Area School District (ECASD) to produce a copy of the script that was read aloud to students in multiple schools informing them of the teacher’s gender transition. The school denied Buchman’s original public records request for the document, allegedly because of a pending investigation, she told National Review, leaving her no choice but to pursue legal action to obtain it.
On June 5, 2023, during the homeroom period at Northstar Middle School, all orchestra students were required to report to the orchestra room, according to the complaint obtained by National Review. There, orchestra teacher Jacob Puccio, a school counselor, and the district’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion director, Dang Yang, were waiting. Buchman’s two children who attend Northstar were members of the orchestra and among the assembled students. The students were told that Puccio was transitioning from male to female and instructed students to refer to him as Ms. Puccio in the future. Faculty then gave the students the option to either listen to Puccio’s story or go into a practice room. All students remained in the orchestra room.
Puccio then explained the psychological journey that ended with him identifying as a female. The teacher “experienced childhood trauma because Puccio’s parents and friends did not accept that Puccio was the opposite sex from that assigned at birth,” the complaint recounts. “The discussion also included reference to a medical procedure Puccio was to undergo.”
After the Northstar meeting, a scripted statement about Puccio’s transition from male to female was read to multiple classes of elementary and high school students in the district, including North High School and at least three elementary schools, including Sam Davey Elementary, Locust Lane Elementary, and Northwoods Elementary, the complaint alleged.
“My frustration comes in the fact that the district gave the statement without my knowledge and consent,” Buchman told National Review. “They don’t get to decide how to parent my children. And I have the right to know what was read to my kids.”
After Buchman attempted a few times to receive the script from the district, WILL sent its own public records request to North High School Band Instructor Joseph McCausland, Principal Kurt Madsen, and DEI Director Dang Yang for “[c]opy of the script that Mr. McCausland read to the North High School band class on or about June 5, 2023, regarding the gender transition of Jacob Puccio,” the complaint said.
The district also rejected WILL’s requests, citing the same investigation reasoning offered to Buchman. WILL is arguing that the script should not be exempt from public disclosure.
“The District does not deny that the record in question was read to several classes of students on or about June 5, 2023 (including Buchman’s children) and, thus, the content of the letter is not and cannot be considered in any way to be confidential or to be an employee personnel record,” the complaint read.