Gloria Casarez's Testimony at School Violence Hearing

At the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission's most recent public hearing on intergroup school violence and bullying, the City of Philadelphia's Director of LGBT Affairs, Gloria Casarez, offered testimony about the experiences of LGBTQ youth in schools.

Last week's hearing was the final one for this school year, but the hearings will resume in September, so be on the lookout for announcements about the next date this fall! Anyone is welcome to testify at these hearings, but students' and teachers' voices can have a particularly powerful impact. If you've had experiences in school with bullying, violence, or harassment that's based on your identity, please consider sharing your story with the Commission! Even if you're not able to attend one of the hearings, you may email your testimony to naarah.crawley@phila.gov .

Check out Gloria's full testimony below:

"My name is Gloria Casarez; I am Director of LGBT Affairs for the City of Philadelphia. I am speaking on behalf of the work taking place within our schools on LGBT issues. The Office of LGBT Affairs works closely with local community organizations across a range of issue areas. I also participate as a member of the LGBTQ Advisory Committee of the School District of Philadelphia.

Overall, my work loosely breaks down as follows:

• Civil Rights
• Economic Development
• Education
• Health

Throughout my work, we’re looking to improve access to City services and to address gaps in policy implementation throughout our departments. The LGBTQ Advisory Committee of the School District of Philadelphia is driven by the work of dedicated community organizations including: Attic Youth Center / Bryson Institute, the COLOURS Organization, the Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative (GALAEI), Mazzoni Center, the Youth Health Empowerment Project (YHEP) and others.

Collectively, these organizations provide capacity building training to District staff at all levels, work directly with students to create safer schools through support of Gay Straight Alliances, and provide a range of workshops covering conflict resolution and positive youth development. Collectively, we provide students and educators with information, resources, and support on LGBT issues.

The efforts of these organizations are viewed as a starting point from which to grow meaningful and ongoing efforts to combat bullying and violence in the schools, but can only be effective if they are:

• supported by the schools
• talked about by teachers and other communicators within the schools
• worked into curriculum
• worked into our schools at every level – elementary through high school

The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) conducts a School Climate Survey that is national in scope. The Survey reflects the experiences of LGBT youth in our schools. The most recent of these data, released in 2008, paints a sobering picture of the experience of LGBT young people in high schools.

• 73% of students report hearing homophobic remarks often or frequently at school
• 86% report being verbally harassed at school because of their sexual orientation, and 66% because of their gender expression.
• Moving beyond words, 44% of LGBT student respondents report being pushed
  or shoved at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation and 30% because of their gender expression.
• For some of our youth, words and pushing is just the start, as 22% reported being punched,kicked, or injured with a weapon at school.
• Another significant point to consider is that most of this goes unreported – 60% of students who are harassed or assaulted in school did not report the incident to school staff, believing that no action would be taken.
• Overall, problems reported included: hostile school climate, absenteeism as a result of the climate,lowered educational aspirations and academic achievement.

Our local community groups have been driving the response to address these issues, but they need help. Our community organizations and the Office of LGBT Affairs work on school issues every day. These are the groups that are working on solutions – they are assisting the Gay Straight Alliances, working to develop the capacity of staff and supportive educators, and pushing the District to ensure that we have comprehensive school laws and
policies. Moreover, they do the work where the policies leave off. These groups have been responsible for implementing training on the policies and have made recommendations to improve school climate (as a group) since 1998.

I am particularly concerned by the School District’s current year activities as it relates to LGBT issues. I met with Dr. Ackerman at the beginning of the school year and she agreed to implement all of the Advisory Group’s recommendations for the year. The recommendations were simple and included:

• ensure that all principals receive professional development training this year on LGBT issues
• send a letter to all principals, under the Superintendent’s signature, laying out the District’s affirming
• policies as related to LGBT students and families
• meet with the community-level members of the District’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee
  disseminate the Advisory Committee’s Community Resource Guide.

To date, Dr. Ackerman has fulfilled her commitment to only one of these items – the letter to principals.

As mentioned earlier, the organizations that comprise the District’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee have been working collectively on policy issues for the District and to improve school climate issues for many years. They are all leaders in the field. Since 2004, the School District has been supporting the work of these key groups with modest grants (approximately $25,000) to deliver trainings and workshops in schools throughout the District. It is deeply concerning that in a year marked by school violence and bullying, every member of the School District’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee has had their already small grant either eliminated or halved. In doing so, Dr. Ackerman has voided the one positive action she did on LGBT issues – the letter to principals – by cutting the small contracts to the organizations that provide these services to the District.
The organizations that the District has already vetted as “the experts” in the field no longer receive funding to provide services the Superintendent encourages her principals to seek out to help their school community. Dr. Ackerman recommended these organizations by name in her letter to principals earlier in the year.

In a year marked by bullying and violence, the Superintendent has endorsed eliminating support to the only organizations that address LGBT bullying and violence.

It should be noted that the Office of School Climate and Safety never notified these groups in writing that their funding had been cut. It should be further noted that communication from the Office of School Climate and Safety has been poor for many years – before and after staffing changes made last year. As providers inquired about their annual award letters very late into the year and after services had already been delivered, they were told that the Title IV funding was eliminated. Not a single organization received a letter –in advance- describing
or outlining these necessary changes to District funding that had been in place for over 6 years.

These groups are committed to our young people and remain engaged in their work but need to be met at least half-way in communicating significant changes such as these. It would seem that the School District is undermining its own efforts to improve climate and safety of LGBT students by cutting the only financial support offered by the District to address these issues in our schools.

We understand budgets are tight all-around – but only one of the items prioritized by the group last year has any cost associated with it – printing and disseminating the Resource Guide (which was developed in-kind by me and other members of the District’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee). Having the Guide in every school provides staff with grade appropriate resources for students, staff, and families. Just having the Guide visible in counselor’s offices, health offices, and so on helps to improve school climate and certainly sets a tone that the District has a stake in the lives of LGBT young people.

Specific to LGBT youth and bullying, I am concerned about the following:

• Under-reporting of violence and harassment in our schools. Are “fights” that break out in our schools being tracked appropriately? We consistently hear from the bully hotline that “no instances have been reported” but we also hear of instances regularly and are regularly called in by schools as they’re having problems.
• The District has many affirming policies that relate to LGBT students (Policy 102 – Multicultural Multiracial Gender Education, Policy 123 – Adolescent Sexuality, Policy 220 – Student Expression, Policy 238 – Prevention of Sexual Harassment, and the recently adopted Bullying Policy) – many districts do not even have that as a starting point. Beyond the policies I’d like to see comprehensive capacity building training worked in at all levels for district staff. The LGBTQ Advisory Committee has prioritized training for principals but the results and communication have frankly been slow coming. We know that
  where there’s a problem, there’s a principal – there are principals who help and there are principals who hinder. We need more principals to help the school communities address issues and we need training for staff to be ongoing, consistent, and mandatory.
• We need to focus our efforts at change system-wide. We cannot focus our attention solely at the high school level. Attitudes and behaviors are seeded early and we need to have support to get into the elementary schools and more middle schools. We need age-appropriate and inclusive curricula to help students understand and respect difference within the school community.
• We need greater accessibility to the schools. Schools cannot wall themselves off and consider their particular school community immune to any issue. We need to access the wealth of resources provided by our community organizations from the beginning, not solely after there’s been an issue or problem that a school needs help cleaning up.
• Most clearly, we need to support student-led efforts to address bullying and harassment in schools – including efforts of GSAs.

In closing, the District has long-standing affirming policies that impact the experience of LGBT students and families. There remain good people within the District administration and allies throughout the school system and in every school – however, the District’s failure to implement the recommendations of their own community advisors and poor to non-existent communication from key offices within the District means that they have many missed opportunities. By dismissing the services of the organizations that stand ready to assist, the District is ignoring its essential community partners. The District’s slowness to act ultimately threatens the ability of the School District to achieve its stated goals for all students.