Here
’s what we wanted to know: Are Morgan Hill Unified School
District employees currently trained how to handle incidents of
anti-gay harassment?
Here’s what we wanted to know: Are Morgan Hill Unified School District employees currently trained how to handle incidents of anti-gay harassment?
The my-lawyer-said-I-can’t-comment response of Morgan Hill School District Superintendent Carolyn McKennan to this reasonable question is patently ridiculous. School Board President Tom Kinoshita also refused to answer the question.
Shame on them.
Six former middle and high school students filed a lawsuit in 1998 – finally going to trial – accusing district staff of failing to protect them from gay bashing at school. Whether or not the allegations are true, the fact that they have been made – bolstered by a federal court judge’s determination that a district does have the duty to protect its students – makes asking what the district does now about gay bashing a legitimate and pressing question.
We don’t expect McKennan and Kinoshita to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, or even to tell us what sexual harassment policies and training procedures were in effect when these incidents allegedly took place.
But, besides being manifestly ludicrous, it’s arguably reckless to claim that telling parents, students and the media about the district’s current sexual harassment training for its employees could affect this five-year-old lawsuit.
Refusal to answer the question is a failure of the district’s duty to district families who entrust their children to MHSD’s care for several hours a day. Parents of all children – gay, straight or undecided – need to know that the district will not tolerate gay bashing (or harassment of any kind, for that matter), and how, specifically, or even if the district trains its employees to deal with it when it occurs.
Given the shocking nature of the plaintiffs’ allegations of their treatment by fellow students – and the equally troubling allegations of district staff’s mishandling of the situations – parents have reason to be concerned.
The kind of behavior alleged in the students’ lawsuit would not be tolerated at almost any business in America. At the vast majority of companies, supervisors and managers are trained to deal sensitively and swiftly with incidents of sexual harassment, which is just not tolerated. It’s reasonable and responsible for parents to learn if the district follows this societal standard.
Parents need to know, and the district has a responsibility to communicate, what training staff members – from yard duty monitors to coaches, from teachers to administrators – undergo regarding sexual harassment of any kind, including harassment targeted at students who are gay or perceived to be gay.
Students and parents need to know what rules about gay bashing are in place – from the consequences for calling someone a hateful epithet based on their sexual orientation and beyond – and how and when those rules are communicated to students and staff.
Anything less is a shameful shirking of duty to our children in favor of self-protection. And that should not be tolerated either.
