Closet classrooms

Part 2

Education by Jason Gay

The first in-school program for gay and lesbian students in Massachusetts was established 10 years ago at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, the city's sole public high school. Founded by Al Ferreira, a silver-haired photography teacher, Project 10 East is today a model for gay and lesbian student associations around the country.

On a recent morning, Ferreira sits in Project 10 East's headquarters on Rindge and Latin's third floor, nursing a can of diet soda and talking about his organization. As he speaks, a handful of students breeze in and out of the room -- some stopping to use the telephone, others staying longer to eat or study.

Project 10 East is open to anyone, Ferreira says -- gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders, as well as straight students (typically, more than half the students in gay/straight student alliances identify themselves as heterosexual). In addition to providing this drop-in center, the project sponsors student counseling, faculty and staff sensitivity training, and outreach for parents and other family members.

The primary motivation behind such gay/straight alliances and outreach programs is student safety, Ferreira says. It's estimated that among adolescents who are runaways, suicide risks, substance abusers, or HIV-positive, nearly one-quarter are gay. Ferreira himself came out and began youth counseling following the suicide of a former student who thought he might be gay.

"Any young person who becomes marginalized is at risk," he says.

Ferreira is the first to say that Project 10 East's beginnings were anything but easy -- early critics ranged from parents to religious fundamentalists. But over the long term, he says, the program has made Rindge and Latin a safer place for all students, because it provides what he calls "information and affirmation" for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

"This has helped change the character of the school for everyone. If it's safe enough here to be out of the closet, it's safe to be anything," Ferreira says. "Even for students who won't directly participate in a gay/straight alliance, the fact that we exist and provide information gives them a certain level of comfort."

For anyone who graduated from high school before the 1990s, the idea of a gay/straight student club might seem as plausible as tuna carpaccio in the cafeteria. But Project 10 East now has plenty of counterparts in Massachusetts, from long-standing gay/straight alliances at Brookline and Newton South High Schools to newer programs in working-class cities like Lowell, Lawrence, Springfield, and Somerville, as well as tony suburbs like Weston, Wayland, and Wellesley.

These student activities are funded by the state's Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Students, which operates from the Department of Education headquarters in Malden. Safe Schools also contracts with outside organizations such as the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to perform outreach work with faculty, staff, and families.

"The goal of the Safe Schools program is to create environments where gay, lesbian, and bisexual students can be free to be who they are," says Safe Schools program coordinator Kim Westheimer, who adds that these services can help increase classroom achievement. "To that end, we're providing training for faculty, workshops for students, and technical assistance for gay/straight alliances."

But Boston's less-than-enthusiastic participation in the Safe Schools program remains a sore point for gay and lesbian education specialists. Westheimer declines to discuss it, period. Others aren't so shy, however, including Bob Parlin, a GLSEN cofounder and Newton South history teacher who leads faculty workshops around the state

"A number of programs have tried to work with the city in small ways," Parlin says, "but in my mind, Boston is a glaring omission."

Boston has been faulted in the past for its poor handling of gay and lesbian student issues. In the spring of 1994, David LaFontaine criticized the city schools as "very slow" to embrace Weld's antidiscrimination law. Six weeks later, the Boston School Committee responded to LaFontaine's blast by officially adopting the state's recommendations for gay and lesbian student safety. "You have probably witnessed a historic moment," committee chairman Felix Arroyo said at the time.

Historic? Hardly. Since the committee's '94 vote, the Boston school system has made only occasional efforts to address gay and lesbian issues. Boston Latin created a gay/straight alliance, but that didn't set off a trend in other city schools. And although some Boston faculty and staff have participated in sensitivity training, the sessions aren't mandatory, and too many staffers aren't taught how to handle delicate gay and lesbian issues.

"There really hasn't been the kind of comprehensive training effort in the Boston public schools that there's been in other places," says Michael Kozuch, a gay and lesbian education consultant who worked for the Safe Schools program until this past June.

The result is an unstable environment for gay and lesbian youth. Counselors who work outside the school system say that these students are underserved by existing programs and don't always feel safe. They experience harassment that can range from teasing and taunting to physical confrontation, according to LaFontaine. "We know firsthand from kids that conditions in the Boston schools are very dangerous in most instances for gay and lesbian youth," he says.

So why aren't the Boston schools taking action? It's not that there isn't a demand for gay-oriented programs in a city as large and diverse as Boston. LaFontaine says that hundreds of city students currently participate in the Boston Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Youth (BAGLY), which offers counseling and support outside the school setting.

Likewise, it's not a question of money; the state provides support grants and staff training at no cost to school districts. And in terms of the time commitment for staff, sensitivity training classes usually last just two hours, hardly a major burden. "It's just Homophobia 101," Parlin says.

A more likely explanation is fear of political fallout. Addressing gay and lesbian issues in public schools can be controversial, even in an urban center like Boston. Many city residents have a hard time even discussing the subject, never mind endorsing a support program in local schools. (LaFontaine, Parlin, and others were troubled that gay and lesbian issues weren't mentioned during last spring's rash of youth suicides in South Boston, despite the fact that a disproportionate number of adolescent suicide victims are gay. "It was easier for them to talk about heroin use than sexual orientation," Parlin says.)

Boston can address these issues; the seeds are already there. Safe Schools did a citywide workshop last year, and Boston Latin got a mentoring grant to help other schools. An in-house staff training program, led by student support services coordinator Deb Jencunas, has made progress, though it needs to go further and reach every employee. The city has also begun to train elementary school staffers on gay and lesbian student issues.

But LaFontaine think it's time for schools superintendent Thomas Payzant -- who has endorsed the state's antidiscrimination measures -- to push the system much further. When Payzant arrived a year and a half ago, he already had an impressive record on gay and lesbian student issues. Activists hoped he would do more for Boston.

"I think there has been a lack of leadership at the highest levels of the Boston school system," LaFontaine says. "If Superintendent Payzant wants this to happen, it will happen."

Payzant agrees that the city's schools have "more work to do" to improve gay and lesbian student outreach. "I would like to see [gay/straight] alliances formed in more schools, because I think they are the kind of support systems for gay and lesbian youth that can be very helpful," he says.

But mandatory staff training may have to wait. With Boston schools in the midst of an urgent, unprecedented overhaul to meet new citywide academic standards, Payzant says he's not ready to commit teachers and staff to additional sensitivity classes.

It's not that he doesn't care about gay and lesbian issues, Payzant emphasizes. But with standards testing on the horizon, the superintendent says his top priority must be improved classroom teaching and learning.

"If I seem a little bit focused on the urgency of that agenda, I am," Payzant says. "But it's not as a result of an insensitivity to a lot of other things we need to be doing as well."

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Jason Gay can be reached at jgay[a]phx.com.