School District 57 trustees have approved new policy to make inclusion an essential component of every classroom and have dedicated a teacher to help make that happen.
Inclusion is a philosophy that students should feel safe to express and live the individual differences they have compared to other students.
The thrust of that philosophy is pointed at differences like skin colour, ethnicity, religion and sexual identity. The new school district policy has been crafted especially for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning students. That policy will be one of the guiding documents used by inclusion teacher Susan Trabant.
"The LGBTQ policy gives strength to teachers for talking about issues as they come up or become relevant, or just in general," said Cindy Heitman, the district's principal of curriculum and instruction. "The education role is huge in this. We have to ensure our staff have the resources they need, so they can ensure the students feel the support they need to feel safe and protected in who they are, so they can get on with being students and focused on learning."
The impacts of bullying, hiding self-identity, peer alienation, and experiences that cut students off from a positive view of the future lead not only to dysfunction in school, but profound impacts on families and communities. In too many instances, that dysfunction becomes a matter of life and death.
Teachers now have Trabant to call on for direct advice and resources on building a climate of classroom inclusion.
"I have only heard support from the teachers," said Trabant. "Everyone seems to know these issues are out there and may be in their classroom. There isn't always a lot of knowledge about how to approach it. Students have different frames of reference at different ages, of course, and at the younger levels they understand boy/girl generalities but they don't have the scaffolding for understanding the meaning of gender identity. Often the teachers also want that scaffolding build for them, so that's what I can help them with."
She recommended that teachers allow the students to set the pace on these issues, especially those personally experiencing LGBTQ characteristics.
For eight years in SD57, Trabant has been involved in such programming as a professional sideline, but now it is her full-time job. Heitman said they expected she could become a model for the province.
"We knew we wanted an inclusivity teacher, we weren't sure what that would look like, but we couldn't find one," she said.
The district's LGBTQ policy itself is already being looked to by other districts, said trustee Trish Bella who first introduced the motion to form a specific protocol document. There was a lot of resistance at the board table initially, she said, but it wasn't rooted in homophobia or some form of prejudice. Trustees felt there was language already built into existing policies that prohibited discrimination. After that decision, Bella said the public expressed support for such a policy.
"This one was streamlined - a nice easy policy all in one document instead of a daunting bulky collection of references imbedded within many policies," Bella said. Using the philosophy of "what's the harm in looking into it a bit?" district staff collected what was already available imbedded and standing alone in other district policies. What they found was convincing to all trustees that a stand-alone policy modernized and tailored to SD57 was worthwhile.
"We have taken the best from those other ones and condensed it down, making everything easy for a parent trying to advocate for their child, or a student who is feeling they don't belong and wants help, and also for the teachers who want to address it. It turned out to be such a quality document, it would be so easy for other districts to take it and make their own, and I expect that to probably happen.
"We know the stakes are so high. If it isn't addressed and those supports provided, the bullying that can go on, the suicides that have happened. If it helps one kid feel supported...," Bella said.
One such kid is Graeme Williams, 7, who comfortably calls himself a Tom Girl and has made it clear to his family, friends and school community that although he has all the physical attributes of a little boy, his behaviour profile is more that of a girl. This caused a roadblock at his school when he wished to have his teacher read the book My Princess Boy out to the class as a way of explaining to his peers who he was, since everyone was able to tell that he was exhibiting the differences talked of in the story.
The teacher refused. The principal refused. District officials continued that refusal at first, but since then the policy was enacted and Trabant's position was laid out, things have started to change.
"On the macro level, what they're doing is great. I love what they have done with the policy, and I really believe Sue Trabant is exactly who should be doing that work," said David Williams, Graeme's father. "But they are still not meeting the needs of one particular child, at least so far. For some reason, someone in the equation does not want that book to be read in that classroom, they have dug in their heels that it won't be done, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. They keep coming up with all sorts of protocols and paths to yes but it's really a process to ensure we stay at no. No one is saying 'what's the big deal?, read the book to the kids,' and allow a child to see something different than what he sees now. Right now all he sees is no one at school wants to support him."
The reason given the Williams for not reading the book, which is used as a resource story in other jurisdictions, is it isn't approved for the curriculum. It had to pass through a provincial book purchasing system called the Educational Resource Acquisition Consortium (ERAC). This is not a mandatory process for books in B.C. schools, and David Williams cross-referenced their list of approved titles with books he knows have been read in local classrooms only to find many books used by local teachers have not been ERAC-approved.
The Williams are unsure what the future holds for their family but hopes the new policy and resource teacher will be an overall district benefit.
"You meet these kids and you see the potential just exploding out of them, they just need a little support to keep them on the path to that potential," Trabant said. "This could have been done 20 or 30 years ago, but I guess we all weren't ready for it then. Some people aren't ready for it still, but now we are in a place where the help is in place. Because there can be profound effects either way, if that support is provided or not provided."
