Help Schools Do the Right Thing
PFLAG: Helping Schools Do the Right Thing by Karen Izzo; first published in Options, Vol. XXV No. 7, September 2006
Let’s face it. Even if we could, we’d be crazy to go back.
We may complain about getting older. We may pause wistfully, recalling how easy it was “when we were just kids.” But that’s the thing about memory. Fortunately or unfortunately, it tends to blur the edges, like those soft focus lens they once used to make aging baby boomers appear passably youthful.
If we force ourselves though, most of us can remember the hard edges of childhood. The friends who turned out not to be. The team we didn’t make. The clique we couldn’t join because we were too fat, or too skinny, or too poor, or too pimply, or too uncool, or too nice.
And as we go about our busy adult lives, we’d do well to remember those painful childhood memories, as they keep us connected to what some Rhode Island kids experience every day in our state. Middle school is the worst. It’s when volcanic hormones and awkward, gangly stages collide, with often brutal results. This is especially true when a tomboyish girl doesn’t succumb to worrying about hair and makeup. Or when a boy doesn’t embrace what he’s “supposed” to—sports, girls, playing with matches….
It is then that their peers turn on them, demonstrating the type of bloody pack mentality usually reserved for National Geographic television specials. But what’s more disturbing, is that oftentimes the parents of these middle school tyrants encourage their children’s bullying under the guise of “family values.” It happened recently in one local community.
A parent group in North Kingstown, erroneously dubbing itself “NK Parents Care,” became apoplectic when the principal and superintendent brought Youth Pride Incorporated (YPI) to speak at Davisville Middle School’s Diversity Day. (Most readers will know that YPI is the only organization in the state solely dedicated to serving and protecting LGBT youth; their Safe Zone program is used in many communities). In spite of the fact that one student at Davisville had been harassed to the point of filing a formal complaint, parents were outraged that YPI had been brought in to speak with students about homophobia.
The hysteria that followed was like something from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible—a combination of the Salem witch fervor and the McCarthy era, in which evil was seen where none existed. Outraged parents passed out inflammatory leaflets at Little League fields, harassed school committee members with angry phone calls, wrote to the local paper with misleading claims, and demanded sweeping policy changes. The procedural revisions they demanded would have allowed them to exempt their children from educational programs like the one Davisville had required of its students, effectively destroying the effectiveness of the anti-bullying campaign.
Fortunately, when PFLAG South/Central contacted James Halley, the North Kingstown Superintendent of Schools, we learned that he had fully supported the decision to bring in YPI. The school committee members were not so quickly persuaded. We were lucky, however, in that the members DID listen. PFLAG organized a group of community activists using Tina Wood’s email list and we educated the school committee, and some of the parents, regarding the issues facing middle schoolers who are gay or perceived to be gay by their peers. We wrote a long op-ed piece that was published in the local paper, and a sympathetic local reporter did a favorable follow-up story. And the issue died down. We have a legal position paper waiting in the wings in the event the parents again attempt to challenge the school’s decision. We feel we’ve done our job, in that North Kingstown schools know they have a friend in PFLAG, and the community is more educated and accepting as a result of everyone’s involvement.
How are things in your local school system? If you need help finding out, please feel free to contact PFLAG South/Central at epbonetti@cox.net or KIzzo1@cox.net.
