Topeka ? The Kansas State Board of Education issued a unanimous statement Tuesday, asserting that Kansas schools have been successfully handling issues involving transgender students at the local level for years, and that’s the way the state board wants to keep it.

“In Kansas, like many other states, our schools have been addressing transgender student needs with sensitivity and success for many years, the statement reads. “Just as every child is unique, so to is every school community. With that understanding, we are firm in our belief that the decisions about the care, safety and well-being of all students are best made by the local school district based on the needs and desires of the students, parents and communities they serve.”

The carefully worded statement, drafted by board chairman Jim McNiece, a Wichita Republican, came in response to new federal guidelines that the Obama administration published last month in an open letter to every public school district in the country. And it appeared to strike a balance between those board members who wanted to rebuke those guidelines as an infringement on local control of local schools and those who wanted to make sure the rights and interests of transgender students are protected.

Those guidelines say that in all aspects of education, transgender students should be allowed to use restrooms and locker rooms and to participate in extracurricular activities that correspond to their gender identity, even if that’s different from the gender listed on their birth certificates.

Those guidelines, in turn, came in response to litigation, primarily between the federal government and the state of North Carolina, which recently passed a law that says, among other things, that in all government buildings, including public schools, people may only use restrooms and changing facilities that correspond to the gender listed on their birth certificate.

“Districts that I talk to have all been successfully handling this since before North Carolina filed a lawsuit,” McNiece said. “These guys are late to the party and now they want to tell you what to do.”

Scott Gordon, general counsel for the Kansas State Department of Education, said the Kansas Association of School Boards and the National Association of School Boards have been giving the same advice to districts about issues involving transgender students for years. That basically calls for school principals or administrators to meet students declaring themselves to be transgender, along with their parents, and working out accommodations that make the student comfortable.

He said the Kansas State High School Activities Association has adopted a similar policy regarding transgender students who participate in extracurricular sports and other activities.

Frequently, Gordon said, that results in allowing the student to use a single, private unisex restroom or changing facility, although the new federal guidelines prohibit schools from requiring transgender students to use separate, private facilities.

“Most often, the last person who wants you to know there’s a transgender student is the transgender student,” Gordon said.

Earlier in the meeting, Topeka school board member Peg McCarthy made the same argument when she urged the state board to leave the issue alone.

She said the Topeka school district adopted a policy more than a year ago that is substantially the same as the Obama administration’s guidelines, and the district has had no problems with it since then.

“Frankly, students seem to be less concerned and more accepting than adults,” said McCarthy, who is a licensed clinical psychologist. “They repeatedly tell me the presence of transgender students in a restroom is a ‘nonissue’ at school. They feel our facilities meet their privacy needs, and they are deeply concerned about fairness and safety for all students.”

During the board’s monthly meeting in May, which occurred just days after the new guidelines were issued, state board member Ken Willard, a Hutchinson Republican, tried to convince the board to adopt a stronger statement rejecting those guidelines as an example of federal overreach. But the board balked at taking action on that statement at the time, with several members saying they wanted to know more about how schools were handling the issue already before taking action.

On Monday, board member Steve Roberts, an Overland Park Republican, said he strongly opposed the Obama administration’s policy.

“I think the arrogance of government is breathtaking,” Roberts said. “The arrogance of government is what people are frustrated with.”

And board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat, said she was disappointed that the policy was an issue at all.

“They’re addressing a problem that really doesn’t exist,” she said. “The schools I’ve talked to have handled it in a very professional way.”

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt recently joined with 10 other states that are challenging the Obama administration’s guidelines in a federal lawsuit filed in Texas.

McNiece said he believes the issue will eventually be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, probably within the next year.