Milwaukee to Form Gay-Friendly Middle School

US News & World Report ^ | December 17, 2008 | Jessica Calefati

[presidio9]

The Milwaukee Public School System will expand the services provided by its gay-friendly high school and apparently become the nation's first school system to create a gay-friendly middle school.

At a meeting two weeks ago, a subcommittee of Milwaukee's Board of Education unanimously approved the Alliance School's proposal to serve sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. The proposal gained unanimous approval from the full board by default when the item was not pulled for further discussion or a vote at last night's meeting. Alliance School lead teacher Tina Owen said the public charter school will begin accepting new applicants eligible for middle school in the 2009-2010 school year immediately.

Milwaukee's response to gay-friendly schools has been much different from other cities'. In Chicago, community leaders' concerns about creating a gay-friendly high school stalled plans to bring such a proposal before the city's school board. In New York City, protesters greeted students of the gay-friendly Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan's East Village on its first day of classes five years ago. But in Milwaukee, the Alliance School's birth as a high school and expansion to serve middle school students passed with no real opposition. Calls from social service organizations and parents urging Owen to create the middle school more quickly are the only responses she has received from the community, Owen said.

Before helping to create the Alliance School four years ago, Owen worked in another Milwaukee high school and advised its Gay Straight Alliance club. She heard horror stories from students who were being verbally and physically harassed on a daily basis because of their sexuality or gender identification. Research conducted by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network indicates that students across the country are experiencing the same trauma. A GLSEN study on school climate found that 86.2 percent of youth who identify themselves as other than heterosexual were verbally harassed in the past year and that 22.1 percent were also victims of physical assaults at school.

Marty Lexmond, the director of school innovation for Milwaukee Public Schools, said the need for a gay-friendly middle school is even greater today because adolescents are publicly identifying their sexuality as early as middle school. He added that he is pleased with Alliance's progress over the past four years because the school serves young people whose needs are not being met elsewhere. Lexmond believes that had many of the school's current students not attended Alliance, they would have acted out or dropped out of their old schools. Some students he came to know personally told him so.

Though Alliance is certainly a safe place for gay youth, Owen makes clear that she did not help create the school or its new middle school to benefit gay students only. "Alliance has never been exclusively a gay high school; rather, so many LGBTQ students are the ones being bullied," Owen said. "This school is for any student who wants to become a part of this safe environment."

[KellyM37]

The best advice I’ve had is NOT to bury your guns in your yard but to ‘geocache’ them in a very remote location and pinpoint that spot with GPS. To bury your guns buy a large enough diameter PVC pipe to put your guns in and cap it on both ends after you put the guns in and fill it with motor oil or (if you have it) after you wrap the guns in cosmoline and wax paper and enclose a lot of dessicant (or rice) in the pipe. Myself, I’ll be using motor oil for the metal parts and keeping my rifle stocks separate at home. Be sure to also store up some ammo. As to the cash, screw cash! Bury some silver and gold.

EXCELLENT advice. They may use metal detectors. Keep them away from your property if it looks like they are coming to seize them. DO a fake bill of sale, it’s not against the law to sell used guns to others or say you lost them in a canoe accident when you were out shooting them. They can’t prove otherwise, they can’t arrest 50 million or more Americans telling them the same story.

[MahatmaGandu]

One other suggestion is to say you gave your guns away in a “Buy Back” program. Then they’ll just blame whatever city you say the buy back program was in for poor record keeping.

[Impy]

I read that other thread. The one with the football jokes....

The last thing these lads need is be segregated from any non-dyke females, and vice-versa.

[SIDENET]

Are they going to have bathroom monitors?

Nah, probably just extra stalls.

[NewRomeTacitus]

Well, Charles, I know you’re properly involved in what the libs are trying to foist on your kids (and rightly so). Could you share some of those stories?

Me, I sat out out gym classes yet passed the fitness tests to get a D to B grade (due to running through the woods when young and working out with my martial arts stoner friends later). While watching huge jocks washing out of Army Basic Training while crying I knew there’s something very very wrong with the system. Self esteem is placed over self reliance, competition is regarded as violence and the right to bare arms is mistaken for looking like The Cable Guy.

I hazed. I hazed the guy who wouldn’t wash, the All-State Football champion who harassed nerds and the dorm supervisor who tried to set me up for a take down. Good times. Now I’m amending any wrongful actions. My Name Is Earl list is almost gone...

[little jeremiah]

A “gay” Middle School???? How old are those kids?

Tomorrow pingout.

[EternalVigilance]

Serious child abuse. They should be prosecuted.

[NRA1995]

to the tune of “Smokin’ In The Boys Room”

Packin’ fudge in the boys’ room
Packin’ fudge in the boys’ room
Ain’t no teacher yellin’ and enforcin’ rules
‘Cause everybody knows fudge-packin’ is allowed in school

[fieldmarshaldj]

That's MISTER Chip Douglas to you.

[BlackOp92]

To start, many of the readers who have read this article have misinterpreted it’s meaning. Milwaukee did not create an all Gay, and Gay only school. It’s creation of a new, Gay-friendly school is referring to the changes that the middle school will undergo. It will still be one school, for everyone; but the school will not tolerate specifically that type of discrimination as many schools have also been adopting similar policies in order to accommodate Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) Programs . As well as keeping the ACLU and the courts from getting involved. Because of the interpretation of the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution; the same document that gives us the right to speak freely on this issue stands that everyone is entitled to equal protection under the law. Because Gay/Homosexuals are a group, and there is a law defined discrimination against these individuals, they are entitled by this right to the same treatment as everyone else. So, until we are willing to give up our equal protection under the law so that they may loose theirs, we must endure. On another note, a reader posted that middle school students are not old enough to know their orientation. The government grants citizens the right to engage in sexual activity in most states at the age of 14. This is equivalent to the age of a 7th or 8th grade; a middle school student. If the government says that they are old enough to have sex, then they must also be old enough to know who they want to have sex with. It is imperative that they be kept safe during their young age and be allowed to learn in a safe environment without fear of being persecuted or abused. Harassment is harassment and as I have seen in other schools, if it gets out of hand courts will step in and I have seen high schools students tried as adults for hate crimes, harassment and terrorist threats for mistreating students of an identifiably different group
Written By: Garrett Hawkins

[presidio9]

Why are you posting this to me now, and what is the context?

I’m intersted to know, because it makes assumptions that I don’t agree with, such as just how much “protection” homosexuals are entitled to. The most likely cause of a gay kid getting harassed at school is him calling attention to his sexuality. Sorry, but the purpose of taxpayer-funded schools will never have anything to do with sexual expression.

The letter also states as fact assumptions which are actually false. Fourteen is not the equivalent age of middle-schoolers. The majority finishes middle school at age 13.

[BlackOp92]

I went back and reviewed what I posted after reading your reply. The information that I provided is out-of-date (refering to age of consent in the United States). I posted the age of consent at 14 which was the presumed national age of consent two years ago when many of the states sex laws were overturned by the Supreme court. I apologize for this outdated information. In most states, the legally recognized age of consent presently ranges state to state from 16-18 unless otherwise defined in the law. Pennsylvania for example states that you must be 16 years old to consent however you may be 14 years old and consent to someone up to four years older than you. As such, 14 years old is recognized as the age of an eigth grader.

Homosexuals are entitled to the same protections as anyone else is, however, due to an increased number of crimes and harrasment that homosexuals are undergoing, they naturally will be entitled to more. This was the case during the integration of schools after the ruling of Brown Vs. Board of Education where federal troops were used inorder to protect Blacks as well as insure no interference with the integration process. This is not a case of sexual expression. It is a case of stopping discrimination and harrassment by others; this occurs to students even if they are not gay. By creating a "gay friendly" middle school you can solve this before it can start. This will take tax-payer money because everyone is entitled by law to an equal education. If you have students living in fear of comming to school, then they will not be learning or performing to the best of their ability theirfor denying them their equal education.

note: I found this thread while researching discrination today. I took an opozing side inorder to provide an equal representation of both sides of the argument.