Schools Ask Students, Are You Gay?

Board survey probes students' sexuality
Grades 9 to 12 asked preference
Helps `normalize various options'
Sep. 2, 2006. 01:00 AM
LOUISE BROWN
EDUCATION REPORTER


Never mind race.

The Toronto District School Board will ask students as young as 14 whether they are straight or gay — or "lesbian, transgendered, bisexual, queer or two-spirited (an aboriginal term)" — as part of a sweeping new census it hopes will help schools better serve all students.

Among more than 55 questions on everything from whether they eat breakfast to who helps them with homework, the voluntary survey will ask children several personal questions, including their race and, for Grades 9 through 12, their sexual orientation.

Students may choose not to answer it, or can check off a box that says "not sure."

"Look, sexual orientation is part of a student's reality; we know students are affected by the extent to which they are accepted by their peers for their sexuality," said Lloyd McKell, the board's executive officer of student and community equity.

"So if we want to be true to the full range of diversity among students, we have to get an understanding of that as well."

Rev. Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church, a prominent advocate for gay rights, welcomed the poll if it helps school officials recognize the bullying and harassment many gay students suffer — and helps address the problem.

"It's a really good idea; this sort of survey has proven very useful in the United States in showing how lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students can feel less safe and more likely to be beaten and harassed," said Hawkes.

But parent Margo Cowie, co-chair of the board's Parent Involvement Advisory Committee, says she fears students in the vulnerable teen years may skip the question if they are gay, for fear of word getting out — or may fill it in simply as a joke.

"As a parent, I question the relevance of asking this information — I think what students really want to tell us is whether they have good teachers and what programs they don't want cut," said Cowie, a parent of two high school students.

However, board social worker Harvey Nagelberg says that even posing the question can help students see sexual orientation as an "okay option" to discuss.

"Seeing it included on a survey helps normalize the various options, which is good," he said.

In June, the board gave its 30,000 employees a voluntary survey that also asked for respondents' sexual orientation in a bid to make hiring and promotion practices more fair.

The student survey was sparked by concerns that schools were quicker to expel black students than white under Ontario's new Safe Schools Act. The Ontario Human Rights Commission investigated and urged the board to start tracking suspensions by race. A special task force under education veteran Harold Brathwaite studied the best way to gather touchy personal data, and last winter, amid much debate, the board voted to start the survey this fall.

But it has since grown beyond a mere racial snapshot to a sweeping profile of how its 270,000 students live and learn and how they feel about themselves, their schools and their neighbourhood.

"We're very excited about it; it goes well beyond demographics to tell what you think about life inside and outside school, how they feel about their learning environment, which school activities make them feel unwelcome — and why —and how they rate themselves as students," says McKell.

"It tell us a lot that will help us put programs in place to close the achievement gap that exists with some groups."

The board field-tested the 20-minute written survey with 10 schools in June and will provide a teachers' guide and a brochure and promotional video to explain the purpose of the survey to students and families.

Students in Grades 7 to 12 will be given time in class to fill it out in the week of Nov. 6 to 10 — it will take about 20 minutes, said McKell.

However for students in junior kindergarten through Grade 6, the survey will be sent home at the end of March to be filled out with parents.