ETHS Holds First LGBTQ Sensitivity Training in a Decade

This story is part one of a three-part report on LGBTQ issues at Evanston Township High School.

For the first time in over a decade, faculty received LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning) sensitivity training at this year’s August Institute Days teacher development sessions, held Aug. 24 and 25.

The 90-minute forum split time between a large group seminar and small group discussions, both principally aimed at encouraging teachers to reassess their classroom environments to identify and address language, behaviors, and educational materials that might make LGBTQ students feel hurt, uncomfortable or ostracized.

“The focus was creating allies out of faculty members,” said Bill Farmer, an openly-gay ETHS chemistry teacher, faculty sponsor for the school’s Gay/Straight Alliance, president of the ETHS teachers union and the school representative largely responsible for scheduling the training. “They kind of talked about subtle messages that are being sent by some of the actions or inactions that teachers do that might be damaging to LGBTQ students.”

The training was presented at no cost to the school through the National Education Association (NEA), a teachers and educational staff union, and the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ civil rights advocacy group. Farmer said he sought out the program after the Gay/Straight Alliance pushed for such instruction and found ETHS administrators receptive to their wants. In total, near 300 faculty members were trained using three of the five LGBTQ-education modules offered by the NEA.

Teachers were taught how to recognize anti-LGBTQ language and homophobic behaviors, but also learned how to turn these occurrences into opportunities for open classroom discussions on gay rights and equality. They were instructed on how to spot gaps in curriculums that might alienate LGBTQ students, such as health textbooks that failed to address safe-sex practices for students who define themselves as something other than “straight.” Faculty members were even asked to sketch their vision of a “cool” ETHS student so that they might better perceive their own biases and assumptions relating to the norms of school culture.

But the training sessions were as much about the “why” as the “how,” dedicating time to convincing teachers that issues surrounding LGBTQ teens were important and often overlooked. Program coordinators presented faculty members with various national statistics regarding LGBTQ youth and the adversities they can encounter.

Darlene Gordon, a career and technical education instructor who teaches a “contemporary adult life” class at the high school, said she was shocked to learn that 20 percent of LGBTQ students had overheard school personnel speaking in a negative or derogatory manner about the LGBTQ population.

“That just flabbergasted me because we’re supposed to be school leaders,” Gordon said. “This is unconscionable that we would be lambasting these students or teasing them.”

The statistic was less surprising to ETHS senior Emma Milliken, president of the school’s Gay/Straight Alliance and Illinois Safe Schools Alliance 2011 “Activist of the Year,” who said that on several occasions last year she had witnessed one of her gym teachers uttering gay slurs while instructing.

“My teacher told [some students] to stop being fags,” said Milliken, who also sat in on the August training sessions. “He used it multiple times after that until I talked to him after class one day, asking him to stop. After that, he didn’t ever use it again, or at least in my presence. He said he didn’t know it was offensive.”

ETHS Spanish teacher Tricia Hurley said that she was taken aback by a statistic detailing the percentage of homeless youth that identify as LGBTQ and by other figures detailing deplorable situations LGBTQ youth sometimes face due to their sexual identity.

A 2011 Center for Disease Control and Prevention report found that LGBTQ high school students were more likely to be bullied and threatened with violence, and were also more likely to engage in risky behaviors.

According to the survey, self-identified lesbian, gay, and bisexual students were two to five times as likely to be injured in a physical fight, two to three times as likely to be injured or threatened with a weapon on school property, and two to four times as likely to ditch school due to safety concerns.

At the same time, they were more likely to have used hard drugs (five to nine times as likely for heroin, four to five times as likely for ecstasy and six to 11 times as likely for cocaine), twice as likely to have driven a car while drinking alcohol and three to four more times as likely to have sex before the age of 13.

The report also found LGBTQ high schoolers were near twice as likely to feel sad or hopeless, and over four times as likely to attempt suicide.

While it is unclear how many of these statistics and similar ones apply to ETHS students, Gordon said that the numbers presented during the training hammered home the notion that some LGBTQ students are distressed by bullying, discrimination or feelings of isolation, and that it was the role of teachers and educational leaders to assists these students when possible.

But Gordon also said that learning the statistical information would do little to help her assist LGBTQ students who might approach her in search of counseling. Gordon said that in her “contemporary adult life” class she already discusses LGBTQ issues, including educating students about nontraditional types of families and challenging some students’ negative viewpoints on LGBTQ sexual orientations.

The training should have included more specifics, Gordon said, including discussions with ETHS social workers and students, if possible.

Hurley also said that she would have liked to know more about issues and problems specific to ETHS so that she could learn to better address the needs of Evanston youth.

“I hadn’t learned anything new,” Hurley said. “I wanted to be told more about Evanston youth, not American youth. I’ve had several students come out to me and I’m not equipped for that. I’m not sure what to say and I want to make sure I’m not saying the wrong thing. That would have been helpful to me to have some guidance in that area.”

Even Milliken, whose efforts with the Gay/Straight Alliance helped precipitate the training, said the session was too basic and did not spend enough time educating faculty on LGBTQ terminology, though she added that it might have been useful for some teachers.

“Most of the material was too basic for many of the teachers in the room,” Milliken said. “Some of the things that people said weren’t exactly accurate…I would have liked to see the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance do the training because I know they are more inclusive with the language and I know that they know what they’re talking about.”

The Illinois Safe Schools Alliance confirmed that they offer staff development training, though it is generally not free and costs on a sliding scale depending on what a school can afford.

But in training such a large group of people, Farmer said, it can be difficult to ensure that some teachers understand basics which others have long known, and introductory sessions must spend time establishing the groundwork for additional education.

“When people come into trainings like this, they come in at all different levels of readiness,” Farmer said. “Some people didn’t even know what [LGBTQ] stood for. So it was kind of just initiating that discussion and generating awareness of some of the resources that are available.”

And though all three had complaints about the August training, between Milliken’s gym teacher, a faculty member Hurley said she overheard describing transgender people as men who wore women’s clothing, and faculty Gordon said she heard commending the session, all had witnessed at least one teacher who might have benefitted from a more basic education of LGBTQ issues.

Gordon also said that while she would like to be better educated on how to help LGBTQ students seeking counseling, she recognized the difficulty in creating strict policies or teaching rigid methods for assisting them, as unintentionally outing a closeted student would be the last thing that she wanted.

Farmer said that he has already turned his eyes toward additional training sessions in the future, which might include similar introductory education for school staff and administration, additional NEA training for faculty or working with Illinois Safe Schools Alliance. Teachers were asked to assess the August training in an online survey and Farmer will use the results from this questionnaire to help determine the best course of action.

Tomorrow: ETHS is rarely the type of school where LGBTQ students fear for their physical safety, but they routinely face other forms of harassment. Part two of the series will focus on the role anti-LGBTQ language and gender identity perceptions play in shaping students' views of themselves and their classmates.