Parent asks that more attention be paid to harrassment
School Board trustees and a small audience got their first look Monday night at the curriculum proposed for sexual orientation and gender identity harassment prevention training scheduled to begin in the spring for Morgan Hill School District seventh and ninth grade students.
The curriculum, a result of the settlement of a lawsuit between former Morgan Hill School District students who say they were harassed because of their perceived sexual orientation and the district, is for one 50-minute session once a year.
The district hired two trainers with the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) to develop the curriculum. Two public forums were held earlier this month to present the curriculum to parents and interested community members.
Parent Helene Arnett told trustees Monday night that there is still a lot of work to be done before the curriculum can be presented to students.
“I wanted to have some clarification and give you some suggestions on how to improve it,” she said. “To begin with, it needs to include more of the students in an actual harassment class instead of what appeared to be a sexual orientation class. With the amount of time given to definitions … the curriculum clearly deals with sexual orientation and maybe 10 percent with harassment …
“This teaches students names to call people but no vocabulary to deal with having these names called to them. It does not make clear what is a reportable offense or give them clear guidelines for reporting … It assumes gay or lesbian students are the only students being harassed and it elevates gay and lesbian students above all others.”
The curriculum is designed to be presented to seventh grade students by their teachers and to ninth grade students by volunteer 11th and 12th grade students who will be trained prior to presenting the curriculum. Morgan Hill Adult School Principal Dennis Browne, who worked with the GSA to develop the curriculum, told trustees that the focus of the curriculum is on understanding and preventing harassment, not defining sexual orientation.
“This assignment is broader than sexual orientation,” he said. “The student is asked to reflect on the meaning of harassment as it might affect any student.”
One of the specific concerns Arnett told trustees she had with the curriculum is that for students who are “opted out” of the 50-minute session, there is an assignment the student is required to complete. Arnett told trustees the program ought to be an “opt in” not “opt out” program.
“(The curriculum) is causing an inherent form of harassment because the students are forced to attend,” she said. “And it gives no clear message of what is harassment.”
Attendance by all seventh and ninth grade students is a part of the district’s settlement agreement with the former students who claimed teachers and administrators did nothing to stop the harassment they were suffering on district school campuses.
If a parent chooses to opt their student out of the 50-minute presentation, the student will be asked to complete an assignment in the library. The assignment asks the student to consider two scenarios – one in which only male students area allowed to be PE aides and one where a student in a wheelchair is not allowed to participate in a drama class – and describe how they are examples of harassment. The student is also asked to read the district policy on harassment and restate it in their own words. The final part of the assignment is to describe how the student believes it would feel to be harassed and to describe what the student would do if the student saw someone being harassed.
Another bone of contention for Arnett was the list of resources for students who are being harassed that is provided with the curriculum.
“It left out a lot of organizations that do not have the same type of belief system as Gay-Straight Alliance and therefore left out a lot of information students could be using to deal with (harassment),” she said.
Trustee Mike Hickey said he was also concerned about the resource list and would like to see some local churches listed as resources for students.
Browne said when he looked at the original list, he did see a need for expanding it and added Community Solutions as a resource as well as some crisis hotlines.
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at
md****@mo*************.com
or 779-4106 ext. 202
