Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:40:54 -0700 From: Jean Richter Subject: 8/26/99 P.E.R.S.O.N. Project news 1. WI: Administrators take part in anti-harassment training 2. Sample sections of Safe Schools Resource Guide posted to web 2. NY: News article on teacher's speech to school violence task force ================================================================================ MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE, August 9, 1999 425 Portland Avenue,Minneapolis,MN,55408 (Fax 612-673-4359 ) (E-MAIL: opinion@startribune.com ) ( http://www.startribune.com/ ) School officials to be trained in making schools good for gays MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- School board members are joining administrators in training on making the city' s public schools hospitable for homosexual employees and students. [Deleted article. filemanager@qrd.org] ================================================================================== I've posted sample sections of the Safe Schools Resource Guide on our web site at URL: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/Resources/OrganizingResources/guide.html At over 25K, it's too long to post here, but if you can't access the web and would like to have it emailed to you, please let me know. ================================================================================== From: SARATOGANY@aol.com Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 20:19:13 EDT Subject: NY: Local teacher speaks to task force: Anti-harassment bill encouraged Msg fwd by: The Coalition for Safer Schools of NYS, PO Box 2345, Malta, NY 12020 "The Actual or Perceived GLBT Student Protection Project" (a CSS-NYS project) CSS-NYS's Education and Religion Consultant/Speaker Rev. John Kettlewell spoke to the Gov.'s Task Force on School Violence at their public hearing (8/9) in Albany. His presentation was dynamic and emotional. It was a wakeup call for the Task Force panel, the audience and media camera people jumped to their idle cameras. See Post Star article below. This message has been distributed as a free informational service for the expressed interest of non-profit research and educational purposes only. The Post Star Glens Falls, NY http://www.poststar.com August 10, 1999 Local teacher speaks to task force State passage of anti-harassment bill encouraged By Judy Bernstein Staff Writer A teacher at a local alternative school told legislators in Albany on Monday that laws are needed to help protect students from anti-gay taunting, something he said is commonplace and can lead to violence. The Rev. John M. Kettlewell, a teacher at the Adirondack School in Greenwich, told the Governor's Task Force on School Violence that new laws could help protect students who are gay, or who are perceived to be, from hatred, just as laws have helped protect black students. Monday's hearing was the ninth in a series held across the state by the governor's task force, which expects to present its recommendations by early September. Kettlewell said legislation like a bill that was introduced in the state Senate in June could help end the name-calling that prompts some students to attempt suicide and others to strike back violently against their classmates. Several students across the nation who killed classmates in recent years were reportedly called names including " faggot" and " homo," Kettlewell said. He said there was no evidence the students were gay. They were called those names because they acted differently from others, and the words are the most insulting ones in young people's vocabulary today, he said. Reached at his home later, Kettlewell said he spoke to the task force on behalf of the Saratoga County-based Coalition for Safer Schools. He said he believes state legislation could help create a safe environment in many schools by giving school personnel the backing of law in handling the harassment. " (Law) can support teachers. Teachers are afraid to step out and stand up for kids, because they don't want to be perceived as being different. I know teachers (whose) hearts are in the right place, but they don't see it supported by administration, they don't feel supported by parents," Kettlewell said. He said two female students at the Adirondack School had told him of being called anti-gay names at previous schools while teachers stood by and did nothing. Whenever he's raised the issue of taunting to school officials, they have told him there's nothing they can do, he said. Kettlewell, who is also the head of academics at the Adirondack School and a counselor there, said such an attitude on the part of school officials promotes an unsafe climate for students. " Carefully crafted legislation could support, encourage and, when necessary, pressure teachers and administrators to create a safe climate in their schools, where kids could grow and flourish in their own way, love whom they yearned for in love, be a little different, be themselves, and be safe," Kettlewell told the legislators. He said he saw firsthand when he lived in the South how federal laws ordering school integration ended up changing the attitudes of white students toward black classmates. He said he thinks anti-homophobic legislation could have similar results. " It was like a miracle. The racism in the schools was horrible, because they weren't integrated. The way they talked was horrible. They used the " N" word the way they use " faggot" nowadays. That was all undermined because integration happened," he said. The Dignity for All Students Act, introduced in the state Senate this summer, would direct schools to adopt policies to create a safe school environment for all students. The law would also revise state curriculum requirements to include human relations education -- to foster an appreciation of people of different sexual orientations as well as different racial or religious backgrounds -- and prepare guidelines for presenting programs on the contributions of people from diverse backgrounds. Kettlewell said he and other administrators were able to create an atmosphere of respect at a boys boarding school he worked at in Virginia and that he is now working to repeat that now at the Adirondack School. The three-year-old Adirondack School serves several dozen students in grades 7-12 -- students Kettlewell said were unhappy because of harassment or other problems in their home districts. The governor's task force has held nine hearings across the state and visited with students at 60 schools, most recently with students from several area districts at Queensbury High. But Kettlewell said he told the legislators they likely didn't hear from students about anti-gay taunting because students who are the victims of such taunting would be too afraid to bring it up. He said later he was the only speaker at the hearing to address name-calling, which he thinks is likely the most important issue behind school violence. He said many parents came up to him afterward to say their students had suffered such abuse and had come home from school crying or angry. " Many, many parents would identify with that concern, that their kids are being harassed at school," Kettlewell said. Kettlewell was the only educator or administrator from the Glens Falls region among the 19 people who spoke at Monday's hearing. Others who testified included law enforcement officials, abuse counselors, a superintendent, a teacher and the parent of student at Columbine High School, the school in Littleton, Colo., where two students went on a shooting rampage in April. Staff writer Judy Bernstein may be reached at bernst@poststar.com ================================================================================= Jean Richter -- richter@eecs.berkeley.edu The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally) These messages are archived by state on our information-loaded free web site: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/