My conversation with Mark Fiorillo, who led the charge on trans student policies in Rhode Island

“You've got trans students in your school, whether you realize it or not. You have to do what's right and create a place for them.”

Last week the Cumberland School Committee unanimously passed revisions to their “Policy Affecting Students Who Identify as Transgender or Nonbinary.” Leading the effort was School Committee Vice Chair Mark Fiorillo, the 2024 Recipient of the Howard Kay Award for outstanding school committee leadership from the Rhode Island Association of School Committees (RIASC). Fiorillo received the award in part because he was instrumental in the creation of the first transgender student policy in Rhode Island and a gender-neutral dress code, both for the Cumberland School District. We spoke outside the Rochambeau Library in Providence on Tuesday afternoon. The conversation has been edited for clarity.

Steve Ahlquist: I was pleasantly surprised when I started researching people on the Cumberland School Board - I mean, Committee...

Mark Fiorillo: Rhode Island is the only state in the country, I think, where they are called committees...

Steve Ahlquist: That's confusing. Anyway, I was looking into your committee and learned that you are a pioneer in the transgender, gender diverse, and transitioning student policies in Rhode Island, all the way back in 2016. I became aware of the issue in 2018 or so when the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) was taking it up as a statewide initiative. [See: RIDE weighs emotional testimony on transgender and gender nonconforming student policy proposal] But you were there two years earlier.

What motivated your interest? I don't remember it being on many people's radar back then.

Mark Fiorillo: No. Westerly attempted it. They got a lot of backlash and they immediately pulled back.

Steve Ahlquist: I've heard some of that history.

What was your motivation? Where did your thinking on that come from?

Mark Fiorillo: It's interesting. I had only been in charge of policy for maybe a year or two at that point. Jay Masterson - the principal of the middle school - and the guidance counselor came to a policy meeting to talk to us about students who are transitioning. “We need help,” they said. “We need some guidelines. We need a policy of some kind.” And I was like, okay. It was kind of new to me. I mean, I'd heard about trans stuff - it had just been coming into the public consciousness...

Steve Ahlquist: At least it was penetrating our brains at that point...

Mark Fiorillo: But I didn't know anything about it. I maybe knew a little bit, but I was ignorant about the whole thing. So the policy subcommittee started talking about it with the administration and the special education director, Rachel Santa...

Steve Ahlquist: Who ultimately wrote the policy.

Mark Fiorillo: She did the research and wrote the policy. She looked at all the state and federal laws and did the actual writing.

I just championed it on the school committee side. I met with people and put together a community group because there was a woman in town whose son had been bullied out of school once he transitioned. I was meeting with her, not so much him. I don't think he wanted to be a part of it.

But we had other students who were affected by it, and they were coming to these meetings at the library. It was a small group, maybe half a dozen, with a couple of mental health providers. We discussed the policy.

A lot of it was just me trying to understand what it all meant. I always feel that on the school committee, or in any elected office, the primary job is to understand what the hell you're talking about. It's all about research. So I started reading all this stuff on the GLAD website. I started reading all these interviews with trans actors about what their experiences were, and I did a lot of reading about it from medical organizations, like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had a lot to say about it. I started to learn what it was all about. And the thing that stuck out to me was that 40% of trans kids students attempt suicide by the age of 19 or 20. That is a horrifying number.

Steve Ahlquist: It is.

Mark Fiorillo: When I learned that, I was like, “Yeah, this has to get done.”

I was fortunate. We've passed this policy, with minor changes, three times now, and each time it's been unanimous. I don't know that any other town in the state can say that. We've had a couple of conservatives on the committee, but they voted for it. They had some issues with it, and I don't want to speak for them, but their feeling has been, “We are going to have to agree to disagree on certain things but this is the way the policy needs to be.” The controversial thing is parental notification. Well, if parents stopped throwing their kids out into the street, we wouldn't have to worry about that. If the kids felt comfortable coming out to their parents, they would.

Steve Ahlquist: My understanding of the policy is that it's not really about hiding information from the parents. It's about giving kids the room they need to eventually tell their parents…

Mark Fiorillo: That's right.

Steve Ahlquist: …in their own space, in their own time.

Mark Fiorillo: We have guidance counselors and mental health people who will work with students if they so choose. But the simple fact is that school has to be a safe space. For kids who live in bad domestic situations or suffer from food insecurity, school is always their place to feel safe. Why should this subject be any different?

I'm proud of the work we did. I met with a couple of people who were against the policy. Somebody asked me, “Do you think it's going to pass?” and I said, “I don't know until a vote gets taken, but I haven't heard a lot of people against it in the committee. Everyone feels that we have to protect kids.”

It's not like we just came up with this. We had an issue that needed to be dealt with at the school level, so we addressed it. We did it over months. It's not like we did it quick. We discussed it. We had public meetings. I had those community meetings, but I also had a lot of policy meetings where we discussed parts of the policy. I never wanted it to look like we were trying to hide it or rush it, so I tried to make the process as transparent as possible. I got pushback from the community in the form of people writing letters.

That's the other thing: If you're going to be an elected official, you have to respond to letters in a meaningful way. I hate it when I send something to an elected official and they say, “Okay, thanks for your email” and they don't explain anything or answer my questions or concerns. I've always felt it's important to respond and I think that's why we never had the pushback that you've seen in other communities.

Steve Ahlquist: You've been in your position for 12 years and you haven't felt any negative ramifications, politically speaking?

Mark Fiorillo: No. No one in their right mind wants to run for school committees.

Steve Ahlquist: It's a lot of work and it's unpaid...

Mark Fiorillo: We get paid. We get $5,000 now a year. When I first came on, it was $2200.

Steve Ahlquist: That's not terrible.

Mark Fiorillo: I don't know what people do with their money, but I try to spread it around the PTOs. Before Covid, I used to go to all of the holiday fairs and spend some money. I'd wear my ID so people knew who I was and could talk to me - which is why I know a lot of people throughout the town, not just in my district.

Steve Ahlquist: This is your last year. I remember you saying you've got nine meetings left...

Mark Fiorillo: Something like that. But I've got a lot of policy work to do, still.

Steve Ahlquist: Why did you decide to leave?

Mark Fiorillo: I just burned out. It's been a frantic pace. I've been on so many committees over the years, and between the building and policy committee stuff, it's a lot of work, which I'm not always able to devote as much attention to. And it was just time to leave.

Steve Ahlquist: Do you think Covid added to that?

Mark Fiorillo: Covid was awful. People talk about transgender policy pushback. Covid was worse.

Steve Ahlquist: What do you mean? Was it about the masking policies?

Mark Fiorillo: Masking alone was such an ordeal. I had arguments with pediatricians because they'd be quoting the Pediatrics Association guidance about how kids belong in schools for their mental health. I'm like, “Yeah, but in that same guidance they also talk about ventilation.” We kept our schools closed until we got our ventilation to where it needed to be. People said, “It’s not like you didn't know that ventilation was bad.” Right, we were in the middle of an $80 million upgrade and one of the things we were addressing is fresh air. We knew about it - we just never had the money for it.

I didn't want to run again after Covid...

Steve Ahlquist: But you needed to be there to stabilize the committee...

Mark Fiorillo: That's the way I felt...

We had two union contracts. The superintendent was changing. We had a lot of new people, and I couldn't find anybody in my district to run. So I felt like I had to stay.

Steve Ahlquist: One of the aftereffects of Covid and the anti-masking stuff is that we now have a pretty loud contingent of people who are transferring from that into anti-trans extremism and Trumpism.

Mark Fiorillo: You can see it happening across the world

Steve Ahlquist: Definitely. France is in the middle of it.

Mark Fiorillo: The driver, aside from the gender awakening of people, is the fact that we have so many people we call immigrants, but they're actually refugees from all over the world coming into these countries. That's causing pushback and xenophobia. People feel like they're going to lose their national identity and everything. I have to tell you, we might be better off if we lost our national identity.

Steve Ahlquist: I'm there with you on that. I'm tracking people who are jumping into school committee races across the state who are supported by Moms for Liberty and other right-wing groups. Have you seen that in Cumberland?

Mark Fiorillo: You never know, right? You never know what somebody's intentions are. But I believe that Heather Chea - who's running the District One seat I currently hold - her heart is in the right place. She's a known factor within the elementary school. People like her and they said that she would do a good job. So I felt much more secure about stepping down. There is a power struggle going on in Cumberland between the current mayor and some people who are not there to serve as much as they've got grudges to settle. I don't think there's anything more dangerous than somebody who runs for office because they have a grudge. It's one thing to have an issue and be concerned. I originally got involved in schools because I was concerned about the Mayoral Academy.

I'm not sure what these people's agendas are, but I think at least our school committee will be okay.

Steve Ahlquist: And tell me about the Mayoral Academy. I know a little bit about that. I do a little bit of work on charter schools versus public schools. I see charter schools as more of a problem than a solution.

Mark Fiorillo: There's a distinction between charter schools and Mayoral Academies because they have two separate laws. I've never seen anything in a democracy, where I've lived for the last 58, years where one person commits to an agreement with something like the Mayoral Academy. One person made that decision. [Former Cumberland Mayor, now Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee] It's a $3 to $4 million decision for the town. We have $3 million going on to the Mayoral Academy this year. The concern I have is there's no exit strategy. There's no way we could say, “We're not going to be there anymore” because the law doesn't allow it.

Steve Ahlquist: It's a state law.

Mark Fiorillo: Yes. My understanding is that it was written by the Mayoral Academy people and McKee's big thing has been the Mayoral Academy. He never invested in public schools. He was always good for a 0% increase. “I'm not cutting your money,” he'd say, “I'm going to give you a 0% increase,” which we know from one year to another is a cut.

Steve Ahlquist: Of course.

Mark Fiorillo: That's why Cumberland, a wealthier community, is still last in pupil spending. We'll never be able to bridge that gap because we'd have to raise taxes in a way that's not legal and not possible for the taxpayers. The problem I have with the Mayoral Academies and charter schools is that I'm against parallel school districts. All it does is take money and the best students with the most involved families - the most significant factor in student success is parental involvement.

And parents demand their students get into the Mayoral Academy. You have to work just to get into the thing. Public schools will take anybody that comes through the door, we have to, and unlike the Mayoral Academies, we don't send anybody back. I know for a fact that if the Mayoral Academies have a discipline problem and don't think they can reach this kid, all of a sudden, that kid ends up back in the public school.

In Providence and Central Falls, their public schools will never have achievement because what they've done is create so many charter school seats that they've left the most difficult students in the public schools.

If the Mayoral Academy or these other charter schools are so good, why don't they take over all of Central Falls? Because they can't. They can't handle the families that have no interest in their kids' education. They can't handle the attendance issues that come with all the socioeconomic concerns. They can't handle all the special education. They have no special education to speak of. I would love to see how many charter schools and Mayoral Academies send kids to out-of-district special education placements, something like the Groden Center, which costs at least $60,000 a year.

Steve Ahlquist: If they did you would know, at least in your district, because you would see that bill.

Mark Fiorillo: We have had students sent back to us specifically so that we could send them to an out-of-district placement. We took it on the chin.

Steve Ahlquist: In the end, you're going to do what's best for the student, even when it hurts. Even when you're thinking, “I've got a bigger argument to win, but I have to do what's best for this student.”

Mark Fiorillo: That's right. I can't use this kid to win my arguments. It's not fair. And families don't want to get involved in legal fights.

Steve Ahlquist: When I was a younger parent and my kids were all in public school, my wife and I were working full-time to get by and to keep our kids in school and keep everything going. We couldn't do politics. It wasn't until my son was 17 that I was able to start investing time in this. I bet you had a similar track.

Mark Fiorillo: Actually, what happened with us was, because my wife and I were older when we had kids we decided that I would be a stay-at-home parent. On the day that my son was born, I was working at Corp Brothers, the gas and welding supply company. When I got the phone call that my wife was in labor, I had arranged with them that whenever that call came, that would be my last day.

Steve Ahlquist: So walking out, you said, “Goodbye, everyone!”

Mark Fiorillo: I did go back to work for a little while after my wife lost her job, and when she got her job back, I was still working full-time. My kids were going to daycare in the morning, then going to school, then going back to daycare until one of us picked them up. My daughter would come in the door, lie in the middle of the floor, and pass out from exhaustion. It wasn't working. It wasn't working for my son, who was on the spectrum. So we made the decision that I would quit my job and come back home and I've been home pretty much ever since, which has allowed me to do a lot of stuff on the school committee that many elected officials don't have time for.

There were a lot of times when I was able to attend meetings during the day, or tour schools because I feel like you should be in the school, and see what's going on.

Steve Ahlquist: I want to touch on the award you received. The Howard Kay Award for the Rhode Island School Committee person of the year. You got that for a bunch of reasons, including your trans student policy and gender-neutral dress code.

Mark Fiorillo: I was at the point where I hated the dress code because, again, all dress codes are punitive against girls. There's no two ways around it. What I wanted to do was solve the problem. This was the second time I did the dress code, and both times I met with students, student groups, and parents, and I decided to make everything gender-neutral. We were also doing the trans policy at that time. The ACLU was very big on gender-neutral dress codes. The only problem they had with our trans policy was that it didn't have a gender-neutral dress code and I was like, “Too bad, we have a gender-neutral dress code so it doesn't matter.”

What we did in our dress code was to take away measurements and things. “Listen, your privates have to be covered all the time. If you're reaching for something, if you're bending for something, it's got to be covered.” We just took away all the pronouns. It was simpler, quite honestly.

One of the big things the high school administration wanted was a ban on visible bra straps. I knew somebody who works in Pawtucket, and they tried that, and the girls stopped wearing brass. I was like, you know what? Let's all get over ourselves. I mean, when you walk around the street, you'll see a bra strap. It's nothing to be concerned about. Then there was cleavage. But the problem is, in talking with girls, you could have two girls wearing the exact same thing, but because of the size of their chest, it's going to show cleavage differently. So I found language that said something like “no plunging necklines.” As long as it wasn't plunging, it was fine. So if you show cleavage, you show cleavage. That's life.

Steve Ahlquist: In my former life, when I was a manager at Borders, one of the corporate managers came in and said that I had to be stronger on the dress code. I said, “Do you want me commenting on the bodies of the female employees because that's the position you're putting me in and I'm not comfortable doing that.”

Mark Fiorillo: That's an HR nightmare.

Steve Ahlquist: I didn't want to be that guy. I asked him, “How would you want me to navigate that?” I think, if we hire good people, they're not going to be flashing themselves sexually. It was his problem, not theirs.

I was impressed by the way you ran your meetings. I was at two of your meetings. They didn't feel inappropriately casual, but your language and demeanor were very relaxed. The meetings are very open, in the best way.

Mark Fiorillo: I try to keep it relaxed, especially at the policy meetings, because I see them as working meetings. Sometimes we'll have a parent who is concerned about a policy, and I'm not going to make them wait until public comment. They can be part of the conversation if they're respectful or if they have questions. During Covid we had a lot of outbursts in our regular meetings - people yelling - and I am not going to stand for that. The other night I knew that that gentleman [Robert Chiaradio] was coming, and I didn't know what that was going to entail. You don't know if people are going to come with him. You don't know if opposing people are going to come or if there's going to be a whole thing. That's why there was a police officer there.

We learned that during Covid. You have to have a cop there.

I spoke to [Chiaradio] on the phone, because he was going to come to that Tuesday night policy meeting, to clarify what the meeting was. Quite honestly, at a policy meeting, we're just trying to get work done. We had five policies to get through, which is a very heavy load for a policy meeting.

He and I talked and had a good, respectful conversation. He chose to come Thursday which was fine. During Covid, we had a lot of craziness. I almost threw somebody out of my policy meeting one night because they wouldn't put their mask on. I was like, “Listen, you're either going to wear it or you're out.” She finally put it on and that person never talked to me again.

Steve Ahlquist: That's hard.

Mark Fiorillo: I'm okay with that.

Steve Ahlquist: When you're in an elected position it's not easy.

Mark Fiorillo: It was during Covid, when we were getting so many people coming up for public comment, that I started to time people, and that's when I came up with the three-minute limit. I wrote a policy that public comment was only three minutes per person because that was enough time for people to talk. And I hold people to that three minutes.

Steve Ahlquist: I noticed.

I've been covering the trans policy issue across the state. I've been going to as many meetings as possible everywhere. I've been to Westerly several times, and Westerly is...

Mark Fiorillo: ...a mess.

Steve Ahlquist: That School Committee is maybe going to try to fight the state-mandated trans policy. I don't know if they will. There are, I think, some good people on that committee, but they're not speaking up the way they should be.

Mark Fiorillo: I was on the executive board of the School Committee State Association for a while. We were talking about trans stuff at a meeting and I said to everyone, “Listen, you guys have to get up and just do it.” And this was before RIDE weighed in. “You've got trans students in your school, whether you realize it or not. You have to do what's right and create a place for them.”

Steve Ahlquist: That's what this latest push is about. RIDE is saying, “Get it done. We've had this policy out for over five years now, so, get it done.”

Mark Fiorillo: And that's why we had to update our policy last week, to be in line with what RIDE wants.

At the time when we were doing the trans policy, I spoke to Linda Borg a lot and I was on Channel 10 once or twice about the policy. That's when I realized that regardless of whether I write the policy or not, I'm going to be the face of the policy.

So I started writing more policy at that point, taking ownership.

Steve Ahlquist: With maybe nine meetings to go, what's your plan?

Mark Fiorillo: Cumberland doesn't have a big black community, but people of color are increasingly moving in. I'm meeting with groups of these families to try to address their concerns. I was hoping to have these last few months of mine to be easygoing, but no, I'm addressing racism.

Steve Ahlquist: That sounds easy. Didn't Lincoln handle that over a hundred years ago?

Mark Fiorillo: I blame Trump because he created a safe space for people to come out from under their rocks. Now we have kids using racist language. I don't even know if they understand it.