Percentage of students over time that agree and strongly agree with the statement, “The students in my school respect and help each other,” from the Student Survey data at Buena Vista School District.
Buena Vista Board of Education Addresses Public Concerns over LGBTQIA+ Student Treatment Standards
The topic of the treatment of LGBTQIA+ students in the Buena Vista School District (BVSD) arose during Monday’s Board of Education (BoE) work session. While the work session initially focused on engaging the principals to report on how the schools respond and document issues with student behavior, the discussion turned toward the topic of students who are members of protected classes and what can be done to better protect those students.
Background
The topic of the treatment of LGBTQIA+ students is not a new one to the district. Parents Heather and Ryan McFadden stood up earlier this spring during the Board meeting public comment to speak on behalf of their child.
The McFaddens explained in March that their child was asked by teachers to speak out to members of the board. “She mentioned that she didn’t feel safe. Schools can be hostile to LGBTQ students, and she’s been bullied, continues to be bullied, witnessed bullying of other students, and then she’s reported to the administration over the years. She’s completed the required bullying form. She’s followed what she needs to do,” said Heather.
However, no notes were taken, and a classmate claimed the topic itself was political and shouldn’t be allowed after the student shared. The board member, who was not identified by name, deferred to the other student, agreed that political things shouldn’t be discussed, and effectively shut the conversation down.
At the time Board Vice President Brett Mitchell asked for a review of the policies raised in the McFadden’s concern, but the topic had not been directly addressed since the earlier public comment.
The new complex for Buena Vista High School and Middle School. Courtesy photo.
Other Indicators
This public comment is not the only instance where these concerns have been raised.
During the recent local Civics Bee competition, more than one student essay focused on the topics of discrimination or violence in schools.
“In BV schools, I’ve noticed multiple occasions where kids use racist, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, and sexist slurs. I’ve even noticed kids getting away with it, even in front of teachers,” wrote Faith R. “I don’t think that students should be given a second chance for discriminative comments. I constantly see students outing other kids for being on the spectrum or what gender they identify with. We need to stop allowing this behavior to continue and teach kids why this is so harmful to everyone.”
“There is a lot of blunt homophobia, transphobia, and ableism in BV schools. Nothing is being done about this. We need to stop making exceptions to bullying because they are different. The same rules should apply to every student in the school and we should make it more accepting. We should teach kids why we should respect people even if they’re different,” concluded the essay.
While she did not directly address the topic of LGBTQIA+ students, the third-place finalist, Andee Q., addressed the topic of violence in schools, “Violence in our schools has gotten out of hand during the past couple of years. As a teenager living in this very war-torn and violent world, I want to create more ways to help us feel safer and reduce the violence in our small towns. According to NewNation.com, violence in rural areas rose by 36 percent in the years between 2021 to 2022. This violence is devastating, and statistics show that out of 40 people between the ages of 12 and 14, 35 have experienced violent victimization.”
Both of these essays are available online here, among the other top 20 Civics Bee submissions.
During Monday’s work session, Board Director Paula Dylan also commented about situations communicated to her, including a child she knows who struggled in the district.
“I know of a particular child, personally, that had something happen, and I can tell you looking at the numbers that it’s not reported here. And that kid ended up really, really hurting themselves because of what happened at school, and they reported it.” Dylan explained that the student had been reporting harassment to teachers, and eventually to a principal, but she could not see it reflected in the presented data (included toward the end of this article).
“I don’t think it’s fair to say that our principals are not putting data onto that data sheet,” said Superintendent Lisa Yates. She clarified that the incident could have been classified differently than what Dylan expected, which could explain why she couldn’t identify it on the chart.
Yates said many of these issues are a problem for society as a whole, and she felt so strongly because “schools are a microcosm of it.”
Later during the meeting, Yates explained her tone. “One of the reasons I felt my own energies getting up, is because our teachers and our staff are in the front lines of that every day. And I’m not asking for any defense of it. It’s just that’s the explanation of my feeling so strongly. We need to make sure that we’re also uplifting the staff that are in there every day who are really trying to create more unification within our society as a whole.”
Yates cited the Kindness Week at the elementary school, civics class, buddy classrooms, service learning, senior seminar and freshman seminar, and other activities which focus on showing dignity to one another, mentoring others, and encouraging respect.
“I am committing that the district is continuing to work on this,” said Yates.
During the meeting, Dylan referenced a “student-created survey” on this topic. The survey was created by a student and given to a certain class and staff. It was not a school-wide survey.
“I read the comments that students made, and I was in tears,” said Dylan. “Those are our kids. And it’s not just happening at the high school, it’s happening in the middle school, and it’s happening in the elementary school. Twenty-five percent of our students in Colorado are LGBT. That’s a big deal to me. We need to be paying attention to this.”
“Please know that we are[paying attention],” replied Buena Vista High School (BVHS) Principal Liz Barnaby. She added that if the data from those surveys had been available earlier, it would have been addressed.
Board Vice President Brett Mitchell suggested that surveys, which he admitted he had not seen, could be unreliable and or twisted to get a certain answer by the one who asked the questions; “I could create a survey tomorrow that basically says whatever I want it to say based on how the questions are asked and who I give it to.”
Between the work session and regular session, Mitchell said to a fellow Board member, “I’m sorry if my comment wasn’t politically correct,” (presumably concerning the suggestion regarding the validity of the survey.)
Later that evening, the Board reviewed their own survey data to measure the district’s progress. The survey is given to students, families, and staff, and the results are used as part of the schools ENDS measurements. One result from that survey showed that in the Spring of the 2023 to 2024 school year, 52.6 percent of students agreed with the statement “the students in my school respect and help each other”.
Searching for Solutions
Yates explained that the district’s policies on discrimination meet state standards. Policy AC: Nondiscrimination/Equal Opportunity specifically mentions gender identity and expression and sexual orientation. Policy AC-E-2 includes the complaint form, which can be used to report an incident.
Policy JICDE Bullying Prevention and Education and Policy states, “The District, including the Board of Education, supports a secure and positive school climate, conducive to teaching and learning that is free from threat, harassment and any type of bullying behavior. The purpose of this policy is to promote consistency of approach and to help create a climate in which all types of bullying are regarded as unacceptable.”
Dylan acknowledged the quality of the general policy in that it fulfills state standards but said she remained concerned about what is not being reported and how things can be improved. “What ideas for preemptive work can we do to get ahead of this for our district,” asked Dylan. “What extra training can we do, what other things can we do to help make sure that these protected classes are taken care of?”
Barnaby cited how BVHS is focusing on “how to create a culture of achievement” as one avenue to improve student interactions with each other.
Board Director Paula Dylan addresses principals during the April 23, 2024 BV BoE meeting. Board members Norm Nyberg and Lynn Montoya and Avery Parsons Principal Emily Madler were not present. Pictured from left to right: Jessica Crites, Paula Dylan, John Emilsson.
BV Middle School (BVMS) Principal John Emilsson suggested revamping how health is taught in middle school. “I’m a firm believer that you need to hear stuff at least fifteen times before it sinks in,” commented Emilsson. He suggested that expanding the scope of health to focus on respect and treating each other respectfully could help. “I think hearing, ‘It’s okay to treat people with kindness is a good message to hear year in, year out.”
Emilsson added that the school also relies on parents to report issues that students may not want to bring up. “Telling us what’s going on, that’s called advocating. It’s not being a snitch, it’s not being a tattletale,” said Emilsson, who highlighted the need for personal accountability for students and adults.
When the principals were pressed for details on how they search for trends across many different incidents, Chaffee County High School (CCHS) Dean of Students Kelly Chandler provided specific details about how they look for trends in the data at staff meetings every Tuesday and follow up the next week to address problem behaviors and have conversations. Given the small student population, this is significantly easier at Chaffee County High School (CCHS).
Emilsson acknowledged it was more difficult to look for trends of data across the student population. He referenced handwritten notes and the logged data on individual student accounts in Infinite Campus, which is accessible across the school for the entire career of each student. During the discussion, he flipped through notes from a single year.
“I was just going through now on hateful speech, those type of violations, I would say it’s insignificant in terms of the volume,” commented Emilsson.
Barnaby highlighted BVHS’ weekly student chats, where they discuss issues across the grade level and identify ways to address them as a method of identifying trends of topics that need to be addressed with students. Barnaby also mentioned the Safe to Tell anonymous report form, which can be used by students to anonymously report incidents to school staff.
Dylan also mentioned that teachers had come to her requesting professional learning on the topic of “protected classes”. In response, Yates encouraged those teachers to speak up to the administration and post suggestions for professional learning to the strategic team’s jam board (an online board where teachers can collaboratively provide input) because speaking with a single board member was not sufficient to indicate interest in the topic.
Yates also explained that principals had come to the work session to give a background on what things they’re doing prior to reporting, but were not prepared to brainstorm solutions to this issue for the future or to discuss what was being done specifically for protected classes.
She suggested a separate work session, before which she could prepare the principals to consider solutions, would be more appropriate for such a discussion.
Colorado Demographics and BVSD Student Incident Data
The 2023 Colorado Health Access Survey (CHAS) provides some information about the LGBTQIA+ demographic in the state. “Early analysis of the 2023 CHAS found that more than half of LGBTQ+ adults (54 percent) reported poor mental health — defined as eight or more days in the past month of stress, depression, or problems with emotions — compared with less than a third (27.8 percent) of their straight and cisgender peers,” states the report.
The report continues, “More younger Coloradans identified as gay or lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and other gender and sexual identities. One in five adults under age 30 (20.2 percent) identified as LGBTQ+ in the 2023 survey. This is twice the proportion of adults ages 30 to 49 (9.7 percent). Less than 5 percent of people over age 50 identified as LGBTQ+. . . LGBTQ+ Coloradans were just as likely to live in a rural community as a city.”
According to the data presented during the meeting, there were zero incidents coded as bullying at Avery Parsons and BVHS from 2021 to 2023. Three incidents were coded as bullying at BVMS during the same time with zero reported for the 2023 to 2024 school year.
Behavior data chart for Buena Vista Schools. Image courtesy of BVSD.
Given the public comment received, feedback from students themselves, and the reticence of students to report incidents (which is a prerequisite for data to be collected), readers may wonder exactly how accurate these numbers are, compared to the real student experience. The question is particularly relevant in the case of a protected class who may be afraid to come forward about their experiences.
2021 data from GLSEN National School Climate Survey State Snapshot: Colorado on the percentage of LGBTQIA+ students who were harassed based on sexual orientation, gender expression, and gender. The chart shows that 51 percent of students experienced verbal harassment in school based on sexual orientation, 61 percent based on gender expression, and 51 percent on gender.
According to 2021 data from GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network), “The vast majority of LGBTQ+ students in Colorado regularly (sometimes, often, or frequently) heard anti-LGBTQ+ remarks. Many also regularly heard school staff make homophobic remarks (55 percent) and negative remarks about someone’s gender expression (71 percent). Most LGBTQ+ students in Colorado experienced anti-LGBTQ+ victimization at school.
“They also experienced victimization at school based on religion (25 percent), disability (39 percent), and race/ethnicity (23 percent). Most never reported the incident to school staff (63 percent), and of those who had, only 30 percent of LGBTQ+ students said that it resulted in effective staff intervention.” This data is about the general experience for LGBTQIA+ students in Colorado as of 2021 and is not specific to this area.
The data begs the question, if 63 percent of students don’t report when incidents occur, how can schools measure the true climate for LGBTQIA+ students and what is being done to ensure these students are being protected?
Featured image: the Buena Vista High School and Middle School Complex. File photo.
Editor’s note: A protected class is a category of individuals to whom Congress or a state legislature has given legal protection against discrimination or retaliation. As of this afternoon, the Colorado House passed SB24-162, which provides legal protection for LGBTQ+ persons from discrimination and violence.
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