David
02-18-2008, 12:57 PM
Lack of understanding
Editor:
Regarding the recently published controversy (R-J, 2/8) over the Meriden Board of Education's lack of support for a (Maloney) high school-based Gay-Straight Alliance group:
The BOE members have the responsibility to educate themselves in order to fully understand the significance of any proposed group in the schools. To believe that our LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) students could be adequately supported through inclusion in a diversity group exhibits an acute lack of respect and understanding for the specific and significant needs of this population.
These students are subjected to constant utterances, casually as well as maliciously stated, which undermine their basic rights to feel safe and protected in the school setting. By becoming educated about the peril -- both emotional and physical -- that these students face, is the very least the board members should be doing before they make decisions.
I strongly urge the Meriden BOE members to contact True Colors, Inc., (www.ourtruecolors.org), a Manchester-based organization which can provide a great deal of education and opportunities for the members to become more informed about this much-underrepresented at-risk population.
LORRAINE A. LIBBY, MIDDLETOWN
Editor:
Regarding the recently published controversy (R-J, 2/8) over the Meriden Board of Education's lack of support for a (Maloney) high school-based Gay-Straight Alliance group:
The BOE members have the responsibility to educate themselves in order to fully understand the significance of any proposed group in the schools. To believe that our LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) students could be adequately supported through inclusion in a diversity group exhibits an acute lack of respect and understanding for the specific and significant needs of this population.
These students are subjected to constant utterances, casually as well as maliciously stated, which undermine their basic rights to feel safe and protected in the school setting. By becoming educated about the peril -- both emotional and physical -- that these students face, is the very least the board members should be doing before they make decisions.
I strongly urge the Meriden BOE members to contact True Colors, Inc., (www.ourtruecolors.org), a Manchester-based organization which can provide a great deal of education and opportunities for the members to become more informed about this much-underrepresented at-risk population.
LORRAINE A. LIBBY, MIDDLETOWN