CHICAGO (AP)
Nov 20 2008, 9:37 AM |
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As far as Miguel Garcia is concerned, Chicago already has a gay high school. Jones College Prep,
where the 16-year-old is a junior, has the city's largest Gay Straight
Alliance, an organization of more than 100 students that he and other
members say wields considerable influence at their downtown campus.
When
he heard about the now-scuttled proposal to open a gay-friendly high
school, Garcia said to his classmates, "Don't we already have that?"
But not every Chicago Public Schools
student has access to an environment like Jones', and gay rights
advocates say the city lags behind its peers nationwide in making sure
campuses are safe for gay students.
Unlike its two larger counterparts — New York City and Los Angeles — the nation's third-largest district has yet to implement comprehensive programs and policies to support the needs of gay youth.
While Chicago Public Schools has included sexual orientation in its nondiscrimination policy
since 1997, schools have been slow to update their handbooks to include
those protections, and students still find themselves fighting to
establish Gay Straight Alliances, said Shannon Sullivan, executive
director of the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance.
"There has been ... a lack of translation between central office to local schools," Sullivan said.
That
contrasts with New York City, home to the country's first gay high
school and a pioneering training program developed in partnership with
the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN.
Before a proposal to create Chicago's Social Justice High School: Pride
Campus was refocused and eventually withdrawn this week, planners
intended for it to become one of the country's only schools dedicated
to gay students. The school's design team modeled it as a haven for gay
youth who disproportionately face bullying and harassment, resulting in
absentee rates more than seven times the national average, according to
a 2007 GLSEN survey.
But days before the Chicago Board of Education
was to vote on the proposal, the plan was retooled and renamed to focus
on serving any bullied or harassed student. Officials have hinted that
those changes — including the removal of key references to the gay community — went too far.
The
design team members agreed to withdraw their proposal "in order to
protect its integrity," said Bill Greaves, a team member and the city's
liaison to the gay community. He said the team plans to reapproach the
board next year.
"We don't know what the
proposal will look like at this point, but we will make sure that
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students are not invisible,"
Greaves said.
The Pride Campus plan,
with its college preparatory focus, hoped to duplicate the success of
New York City's Harvey Milk school, which primarily serves gay youth.
Harvey Milk
sends 60 percent of students to advanced programs or college and has a
95 percent graduation rate, both higher than the district's overall
rates. It is run by the city's Department of Education.
New
York also recently expanded its Respect for All initiative, a citywide
training program for educators on how best to address bullying and
harassment, with a focus on gay students.
"Harvey Milk High School
is an incredible program that has reached students who would not
otherwise graduate," said Eliza Bayard, executive director of GLSEN.
"At the same time, the city has also recognized that there is a need to
address these issues across the board."
The San Francisco Unified School District
has adopted policies against name-calling, established gay-friendly
student organizations at all middle and high schools and hired staff
trained to provide health-related information to gay students and those
questioning their sexual orientation.
Similarly, the Los Angeles Unified School District
has Project 10, which GLSEN has identified as the country's first
in-school program for gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender students.
And dozens of students who identify themselves as GLBT enroll in Central High School/Tri-C, a dropout prevention program.
Bayard noted that other states and school districts, from Massachusetts to Minnesota, have programs to support gay students and said she hopes Chicago follows suit.
"I can guarantee you that it's started a dialogue," said Rufus Williams, president of the Chicago Board of Education. "What we should do is try to create tolerance in every single environment that we have so we have a culture of tolerance."
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