A new guide is helping local educators teach tolerance in our schools. Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project released the guide. It states that even though lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students are harassed at twice the rate of other students, a few purposeful steps can help transform a school into a safer place for all students. It's called Best Practices: Creating an LGBT-inclusive School Climate.
The guide offers advice ranging from ensuring that a school's anti-bullying policy explicitly prohibits anti-LGBT bullying, to recognizing staff members who promote an inclusive school environment. It also offers advice regarding dress codes, gay-straight alliances and how to ensure LGBT students are not excluded from school events.
"This best practices guide is about creating schools where all students feel safe and supported," Teaching Tolerance Director Maureen Costello said. "Every student has a right to attend school without harassment. This guide shows how a few steps can make all the difference."
The best practices guide is being released a year after the SPLC reached a settlement agreement to address rampant anti-LGBT bullying in Minnesota's largest school district, the Anoka-Hennepin School District. A key issue in the SPLC lawsuit was a district policy that required staff to be neutral on issues relating to sexual orientation - hampering effective responses to bullying. That policy is no longer in effect.
The guide is available at www.tolerance.org
