Back-to-school time is here, which means it’s time for my annual back-to-school resource post, a tradition I first started in 2006, before my own son was even in school. He’s grown and changed, and so has this list. I hope it remains useful, whether your children are just entering school, starting a new school, or encountering new issues along their educational journey.
[Update: Please see the 2016 list for the latest resources and links.]
For families with young children
- The Human Rights Campaign’s An Introduction to Welcoming Schools guide is perhaps the best single resource for families with young children. It aims to help elementary school administrators, teachers, parents and guardians address family diversity, gender stereotyping and bullying, and includes a bibliography of books on all kinds of families, LGBT and not. Also be sure to check out the trailer for Welcoming School’s DVD, What Do You Know? Six- to twelve-year-olds talk about gays and lesbians, an award-winning professional development film for elementary school staff and parents. If you buy the DVD (setting you back a mere $20), you’ll get the 13-minute film, a two-minute trailer, the four-minute special feature, Teachers Respond, and a Facilitation Guide, as well as closed captioning and Spanish subtitles.
- The Family Equality Council’s “Back to School Tool” is a useful short guide for LGBT parents on how to make our children’s schools safer and more inclusive. The organization also offers “Opening Doors,” a short but helpful booklet with tips for educators and others. It discusses the kind of prejudice children of LGBT families may face, how educators can support them, and how they can answer questions other children may have about them.
- GLSEN’s Ready, Set, Respect tool is great for schools that don’t have the capacity for a full-school program.
- Our Family Coalition also offers several brief guides on how to make elementary schools safer and more inclusive for LGBT families.
For families with older children
Many resources aimed at older students focus on LGBT youth, but most also have applicability to children of LGBT parents, whatever the children’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
- GLSEN has extensive safe-schools materials for both educators and students, including information on its educator training program and starting gay-straight alliances, as well as extensive research about the impact of homophobia and transphobia.
- GLSEN also manages a number of programs/events to engage school communities of all grades throughout the academic year, including Ally Week, ThinkB4YouSpeak, the Day of Silence, No Name-Calling Week, and the Safe Space Kit.
- PFLAG’s Safe Schools for All: Cultivating Respect program has similar materials (in both English and Spanish) for making schools safer, reducing bullying, and providing comprehensive health education. They also offer a certification program for PFLAG members who want to assist with staff training and policy creation in local schools.
- The Gay-Straight Alliance Network has materials for starting or sustaining a GSA, as well as the guide “Beyond the Binary: Making Schools Safe for Transgender Youth,” a joint project with NCLR and the Transgender Law Center.
- NCLR has additional safe-schools information, including samples of anti-harassment policies and memos to school boards.
- The Trevor Project offers vital support for LGBTQ youth in crisis, including a suicide prevention hotline. It also has a list of resources for parents and educators to use and distribute before a crisis occurs.
For all ages
- Teaching Tolerance’s guide, “Best Practices: Creating an LGBT-inclusive School Climate,” is a useful compact reference for classrooms of all ages.
- Gender Spectrum’s Education section has classroom discussion ideas, information about teacher training, school policy suggestions, and more related to gender identity and expression, in addition to the site’s many other useful resources for parents.
- TransYouth Family Allies also has good information for parents and educators of transgender and gender nonconforming youth.
Book recommendations
- The American Library Association’s Rainbow List offers LGBT-inclusive children’s and young adult books chosen buy a committee of librarians for quality as well as content.
- The best single resource for LGBT-inclusive books and media aimed at children up to grade five, however, is librarian Jaime Campbell Naidoo’s Rainbow Family Collections
, an annotated guide to nearly 250 titles. (See my full review.)
LGBT-inclusive educational films
- Groundspark’s series of LGBT-inclusive diversity-education films include That’s a Family, for elementary school students, about different family structures; Let’s Get Real, for middle schoolers, about name-calling and bullying; It’s STILL Elementary, for and about educators discussing gay issues in schools; and Straightlaced, for teens, about the pressure of gender stereotypes. Curriculum guides make the films easy to incorporate into diversity and anti-bullying programs. The films are also available for individual screening online: $4.99 for 90 days of on-demand viewing.
Sports-related resources
Homophobia and transphobia have unfortunately long reigned in school sports. A 2008 study by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) found that some students with LGBT parents were told they should not do sports, or had their athletic abilities questioned, because they had LGBT parents. And GLSEN’s 2011 National School Climate Survey found that “more than half of LGBT students were bullied or harassed in their P.E. class because of their sexual orientation or gender expression and over a quarter reported being harassed or assaulted while playing on a school sports team.”
- GLSEN’s Changing the Game: The GLSEN Sports Project, is backed by a coalition of athletes, journalists, and sports figures. It features “Game Plan” resources for athletes, athletic administrators, coaches and parents, inspirational videos about people making a difference, and the Team Respect Challenge pledge “for teams to commit to treat all teammates with respect.” The San Diego Padres in July became the first professional team to sign it.
- Athlete Ally offers individuals an online pledge to reduce homophobia in sports. Founded by Hudson Taylor, a straight, three-time NCAA Division I All-American wrestler, now a Division I wrestling coach at Columbia University, the site also includes a weekly “Ally’s Playbook” video with suggestions for how non-LGBT athletes can help reduce homophobia. Hudson is also seeking high school and college students to be “Athlete Ally Ambassadors” to promote the pledge and participate in future initiatives.
- And the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Sports Project has long been a powerhouse of advocacy and education. It also offers legal assistance for LGBT athletes and coaches.
Anti-bullying
- The Matthew Shepard Foundation has a number of resources for educators and others, specific to anti-LGBT bullying, including Matthew’s Place, “an online village for LGBTQ youth and allies.”
- Stopbullying.gov has many good general resources about bullying and cyberbullying.
- The It Gets Better project continues to spread messages and videos of hope to bullied LGBT youth.
- GLAAD organizes the annual Spirit Day (October 17 this year) as a sign of support for bullied LGBT youth.
Beyond LGBT inclusion
Because we want to be allies to others, just as they are allies to us (however we each define “us” and “other”).
- Teaching Tolerance has a plethora of resources for teachers and parents about various aspects of diversity. Their guide, Best Practices: Creating an LGBT-inclusive School Climate, is worth a look, as are their many resources on race, ethnicity, gender, abilities, bullying, and more.
- Some sites and blogs I like for finding diverse children’s books include: the Children’s Book Council’s Diversity site (especially the Resources page), Diversity in YA, Pragmatic Mom, and Spanglish Baby — but of course there are many more depending on exactly what you’re seeking. Try doing a Web search for “children’s books [keyword]” (where “[keyword]” is the topic of interest).
Should tragedy strike
May we never need these:
- “Helping Children Deal with Traumatic Events,” from Open Circle, the elementary school social emotional learning (SEL) program at the Wellesley Centers for Women. (I work at the Wellesley Centers for Women, though not in the Open Circle program. I post here as an individual, and not on behalf of the organization.)
- “Helping Children Cope with Tragedy Related Anxiety,” from Mental Health America.
Of course, our best resources are often our neighbors and friends. When it comes to LGBT issues in schools, this could include other LGBT parents and parents of LGBT children—but also families who may have similar concerns about exclusion and/or harassment because of their family structure, race, ethnicity, religion, or other reasons. It could also include “traditional” families who know that LGBT families are as much a part of communities across the United States as anyone else. Here’s hoping that we and our children find friends, allies, and inclusion this school year.
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