A nonprofit religious rights law firm is set to give Lehighton Area School District “free advice” on Title IX issues during the Jan. 27 board of directors meeting, Board President Joy Beers said Monday.

Beers said she reached out to the Independence Law Center, of Harrisburg, after seeing various lawsuits in other school districts over Title IX issues.

“The changes that have been occurring with Title IX are at odds with its original mission of protecting women’s sports,” Beers said. “There are people on both sides of the issue. My belief aligns with the ILC and how they interpret Title IX.”

The ILC has been making an impact in other areas of Pennsylvania. Elizabethtown Area School District in Lancaster County adopted the first reading of two proposed policies last month crafted with guidance from the ILC. One, according to LancasterOnline, would bar transgender athletes from participating on a sports team aligning with their gender identity, and the other requires a parent or guardian to submit a form initiating a student name or pronoun change.

“There are doctors that specialize in everything and I don’t think it ever hurts to go to a specialist,” LASD director Duane Dellecker said of bringing in the firm.

Beers said the ILC would make its public presentation to the district at no cost. The district’s contracted legal firm, Fox Rothschild LLC, supports the decision, she added.

“Fox Rothschild has worked with them in other districts,” Beers said. “They have no issue with it.”

During the public comment portion of Monday’s school board meeting, elementary teacher Christina Haupt cautioned the governing body about taking the ILC’s advice in a vacuum.

“It doesn’t take a lot of deep diving to see they have a very forward Christian ideology,” Haupt said of the ILC. “Keep in mind we serve a lot of different families with a lot of different beliefs. A public school is not the place for that kind of legal advice to be driving policy.”

Earlier this month, Pennridge School District repealed a policy crafted in consultation with the ILC that, according to the Bucks County Courier Times, prohibited teachers from engaging in discussions or displaying symbols on “religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, social, political and geo-political matters.”

All Lehighton directors polled Monday said they were in favor of hearing what the ILC had to offer.

“Should there be another group that gives an opposing or different view, we should listen to them too,” Barbara Bowes said. “We should get a diverse opinion. It doesn’t mean we will do anything, it just means we are listening.”