Branford Education Board Asked to Better Address District's LBGTQ Policy
Five parents stood in support of one another at the start of the June 20 full Board of Education (BOE) meeting, as one of them read a statement asking the BOE to better honor a 2015 policy providing for district staff training in transgender or other gender identity issues, and what it means to treat all people respectfully and equally. She also gave examples of disparaging incidents occuring over the school year, some allegedly involving staff or administration.
While the BOE doesn't comment on public statements during meetings, Superintendent of Schools Hamlet Hernandez commented briefly during his year-end report to the BOE at the same meeting.
"We don't shy away from difficult situations. We just heard this evening that we have some work to do, from the perspective of one parent, who's here with five or six other parents...so we recognize that perhaps there is some work that needs to be done in that area," said Hernandez. "We're not going to shy away from that. We haven't shied away from issues; and I think that is the mark of a successful school district. Not that you have challenges [but] how do you address the challenges. Because any school district that will tell you they do not have challenges is frankly not being honest with you."
In her statement, the parent, who told Zip06/The Sound she wanted to be identified only as "Christy," asked the BOE for a written response with a specific plan that would include implementing training, by experts in the field "... to make sure that you inject the school system with knowledge and tools required to fully support all LBGTQ kids."
"This past year, there were parents in this school system worried daily that their child would be teased once more because of their LGBTQ identity," she said, in the statement read to the BOE.
One example she cited was that some school staff, at times, had "...disclosed the sexual orientation of students to parents, hanging these kids out to dry if parents were unsupportive."
In another instance, she said, "...LBGTQ children were cited by a Walsh administrator as a reason to reconsider the upcoming eighth grade Washington trip; revealing in that statement an appalling set of wrong assumptions about the behavior of these children."
Noting at least one LBGTQ child has "definitively left the school because they perceived it as a hostile environment," she said another student experiencing "similar treatments," including a deragatory remark made while on the playground, "...cried in the nurses' office each morning."
"These are facts," she said of the incidents. "I'm letting you know here today that you have a lot more work to do in the area of supporting LBGTQ children. A lot more work to become a place that not only tolerates them; but helps them thrive with pride."
She also recognized the district includes those working to "do the right thing" and asked the BOE to strengthen those actions across the district with training and support.
"Branford schools has amazing teachers and social workers who try each day to do the right thing by their students. Give them their tools. Enrich their capacity to do that," she said, adding, "...I understand that the school system cannot micromanage every child's actions, or wipe away the prejudices of people in the community. This Board of Education cannot single handedly change the social environment. But what you can do is make it a stronger system of support, where these kids are better understood. And it starts with training administrators, teachers and staff; as you yourself suggested two and half years ago. That was the right policy call then, and now I urge each of you personally to take responsibility for implementing the training, and overseeing the training, and overseeing that it is fully and not half-heartedly done."