Associated Press, September 2, 1999

Governor's commission calls on ed board to protect gay kids

By Robin Estrin, Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) - The Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth is asking the state Board of Education to ensure that gay and lesbian students are protected from discrimination at school.

The commission believes that nearly a third of the state's public schools are not including gay and lesbian students in anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies.

In December 1993, Massachusetts enacted the Gay Student Rights Law, which gave gay and lesbian students equal protections in their schools.

But the Department of Education regulations that govern school life were never updated to include sexual orientation. And schools often take their cues from those DOE guidelines.

''I think the absence creates a category of people who are prime targets,'' said commission Chairman David LaFontaine, who said all schools are legally obligated to protect gays and lesbians just as they are any other minority group.

In a letter dated Thursday, the commission asks the Board of Education to update those state regulations to include gay and lesbian students and follow state law.

''The governor's commission is deeply concerned that the explicit legal protections afforded gay and lesbian public schools students ... have not been appropriately implemented at either the statewide level of oversight or at the local level,'' the letter said. ''Gay students continue to face verbal and physical violence in our schools.''

Changing the policies won't stop the harassment, threats and name-calling that gay students endure. But it will help set a tone of acceptance, members of the commission said.

''It's so the next generation of kids not learn to tolerate each other, but learn to like one another despite their differences,'' said Lesa Lessard, the commission's vice chairwoman.

For many gay students, simply having their school handbooks talk about antigay violence and its consequences helps reduce feelings of isolation, LaFontaine said.

There are at least 15,000 gay high school students in Massachusetts, based on the number of kids who attend gay and lesbian support group meetings. The figure is most likely an underestimate, LaFontaine said.

Many high schools updated their own policies after the Gay Student Rights Law was passed, even without changes in the DOE regulations. Among those that have been especially supportive of gay students, LaFontaine said, are: Arlington, Brookline, Canton, Chicopee, Newton and Springfield.

Some 180 high schools or about half of all public schools have a gay support group for students.

The governor's commission also wants the Board of Education to identify all schools that have failed to amend their anti-harassment policies and to require them to do so.

Jim Peyser, chairman of the education board, said he has asked the DOE for some advice on the request.

''To the extent that districts aren't abiding by the law or if the regulations are not in synch with the statue, we certainly ought to do something about it,'' he said.

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BOSTON GLOBE, September 3, 1999
Box 2378,Boston,MA,02107
(Fax 617-929-2098 ) (E-MAIL: letter@globe.com )
( http://www.boston.com/globe )

Safety of gays in school is urged

By Doreen Iudica Vigue, Globe Staff

Insisting a stronger message be sent in schools that discrimination of gay and lesbian students will not be tolerated, a state commission is demanding all public schools update their policies to protect homosexuals.

The Governor's Commission for Gay and Lesbian Youth yesterday sent a letter to the Board of Education asking the state to more stridently enforce the Gay and Lesbian Student Rights Law enacted in 1994.

''Many schools have failed to update their policies to reflect the change in the law and gay students continue to face verbal and physical violence in our public schools,'' David LaFontaine, chairman of the Commission, said in a letter to Board of Education chairman James A. Peyser.

About 30 percent of the schools in the state still have not added the law to their policies or spelled it out in their student handbooks, LaFontaine said.

''There are tragic possibilties lying ahead if schools don't come in compliance with the law,'' he said, ''and that won't happen unless the board takes appropriate action.''

The commission wants the board to adopt several recommendations including updating school regulations to reflect Massachusetts law that prohibits discrimination based on a student's sexual orientation.

The commission also recommends the board identify districts in the state that have failed to amend school policies to include the protection of gay and lesbian students, provide them with sample policies, and set a deadline to comply.

Peyser said yesterday he sent a copy of the letter to state Department of Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll for review and would discuss the recommendations.

''I don't know what the facts are in terms of the extent to which the regulations are out of sync with the statute or the extent to which the districts are implementing the law,'' Peyser said. ''I'm going to investigate them through the commissioner.''

LaFontaine said the law also allocates funding of Safe Schools Programs for gay and lesbian students, and also Gay-Straight Alliance groups to create tolerance among all students.

He said having the laws outlined in school policies makes it easier for students to establish such groups. There are 180 in schools statewide.

''We have always felt the law would be our most powerful tool in ending harassment of gay and lesbian students, which is still such a common thing,'' LaFontaine said.

Fawnsa Rosario, 15, a junior at Everett High School, said she tried to establish a Gay-Straight ... got it launched because her teachers were not sure how to do it.

She said she was told there weren't enough students to start the group. ''I think if they just got one started, there would be a lot of people who would join,'' Rosario said. ''I don't think they were discriminating as much as they were confused. I just think they don't know how to deal with this.''

Walter Shaw, head of the guidance department at Everett High, said he did not recall Rosario trying to start a group last year, but said he would help her begin one this year.

''It's important that people don't feel like outcasts and can be in a group where they're able to talk,'' Rosario said.

BOSTON HERALD, September 3, 1999
1 Herald Square,Boston,MA,02106-2096
(Fax 617-542-1315 ) (E-MAIL: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com )
( http://bostonherald.com )

Panel says schools don't do enough to protect gay pupils

The state's public schools need to do more to protect the rights of homosexual students, according to recommendations released yesterday by the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.

``If someone in school makes a racist or anti-Semitic joke, people in power take the strongest kind of action,'' commission Chairman David LaFontaine said. ``When it happens to gay and lesbian students, the response is often denial.''

The commission said the protections given to homosexual students by the state's 1993 Gay and Lesbian Student Rights Law ``have not been appropriately implemented at either the statewide level of oversight or at the local level.''

``We're deeply concerned that the Board of Education h...

An estimated 30 percent of the state's public schools do not have language that includes gay and lesbian students in their anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, according to the commission.

LaFontaine would not identify individual schools.

Among those that have been especially supportive of gay students, LaFontaine said, are: Arlington, Brookline, Canton, Chicopee, Newton and Springfield.

He asked the education board to look at the handbooks and policies from every public school in the state, and to require those found lacking to be updated.

LaFontaine would not say whether he expected a political fight to get the recommendations enacted.

``People think it's a political issue,'' he said. It's not politcal. It's an issue of student safety and of schools enforcing the law.''

He said the commission did not feel the previous chairman of the Board of Education, John Silber, was open to discussing such issues.

LaFontaine said he hopes the new chairman, James Peyser, will support the recommendations.

Peyser, who has been chairman of the board for about six months, said he had seen a copy of the letter with the recommendations, but it was too soon to comment.

Education Commissioner David Driscoll was not available for comment.

J. Edward Pawlick, a conservative activist and publisher from Sherborn, said the recommendations should not be enacted, and he lashed out at the commission.

``The governor's commission is continuing to operate on the outdated premise that there is a gay gene,'' Pawlick said. ``They believe that every baby is born either a heterosexual or a homosexual and it is the duty of the schools to determine which each child is.''

The commission's letter to the Board of Education recommended that all public schools revise their student handbooks to ``reflect the protection afforded gay and lesbian students under Massachusetts law.''

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