“Gay” is the number-one insult among schoolchildren, reports the BBC, although most use it to mean “lame,” without any intended reference to sexual orientation. The article charts how the meaning of the word has changed over the years (remember when it used to mean “happy” or “festive”?), and notes “This mutation of the word is […]
Looks like the Loudoun County, Virginia school superintendent’s backpedaling over And Tango Makes Three was in the right direction. According to the Washington Post: On Monday, school officials issued a written statement saying that the book also would return to the shelves at Sugarland [Elementary School] because [Superintendent] Hatrick had discovered “significant procedural errors” in
The gay-straight alliance at one of the high schools in our area was sponsoring a showing of Love Makes a Family, the great traveling exhibit of photographs and interviews featuring LGBT families. Yesterday, the exhibit was open to the public. Even though I’d seen it before, I took my son after preschool.
The first comprehensive report on LGBT families’ experiences in education, Involved, Invisible, Ignored, has found that LGBT parents are more likely to be involved in their children’s K-12 education than the general parent population. At the same time, both LGBT parents and their children often report harassment because of their family structure. The report was
After 15-year-old Lawrence King was shot to death by a fellow student because he was gay, California Assemblyman Mike Eng proposed a new bill to “establish school diversity and sensitivity training to help prevent such tragedies in the future.” According to Gay Wired, “The new bill would require mandatory classes on diversity and tolerance in
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Thursday unanimously upheld the rejection of a suit brought by two couples from Lexington, Massachusetts, who said their school district had no right to include LGBT-related books like King & King in its elementary school curriculum. (See my August post about the case.) The parents
Stars and Stripes, the daily newspaper for the U.S. military community overseas, has a fascinating article on the establishment of a Gay-Straight Alliance club at Robert D. Edgren High School, situated at Misawa Air Base in Japan and part of the Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Pacific. Despite some controversy and an investigation of the Department
Today marks the start of No Name-Calling Week, “an annual week of educational activities aimed at ending name-calling of all kinds and providing schools with the tools and inspiration to launch an on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate bullying in their communities.” The event was created four years ago by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight
First, the Evesham School District in New Jersey said third graders (usually eight years old) are too young to hear children’s books featuring same-sex couples. Now, one family in Winnipeg, Canada, wants to transfer their twelve-year-old seventh grader to another school because the boy’s teacher has placed a photo of his same-sex spouse on his
Originally published in Bay Windows, November 13, 2007 (which explains the Massachusetts bias). See also this recent article about a similar initiative in Toronto. LGBT parents and educators in the Boston area are the source of one of the most comprehensive new resources for making elementary schools across the country more welcoming for all types
