{"id":1916,"date":"2009-02-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/state%e2%80%99s-largest-school-district-ends-anti-gay-policy\/"},"modified":"2009-02-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-14T00:00:00","slug":"state%e2%80%99s-largest-school-district-ends-anti-gay-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2009\/02\/state%e2%80%99s-largest-school-district-ends-anti-gay-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"STATE\u2019S LARGEST SCHOOL DISTRICT ENDS ANTI-GAY POLICY"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(Minnesota)-<\/em> For more than a decade, the Anoka-Hennepin School Board had a policy that forbade teachers and students from speaking about homosexuality, except to describe it as abnormal or invalid. But the board Monday [Feb. 9\/09] approved a more inclusive policy after years of work by community members to make the district more accepting of all students.<\/p>\n<p>The old policy, enacted in 1995, read, &ldquo;Homosexuality [will] not be taught\/addressed as a normal, valid lifestyle.&rdquo; The policy originally applied just to health classes but eventually came to pervade all aspects of class instruction and extracurricular activities. The board&rsquo;s&nbsp; vote to eliminate the policy earned praise from GLBT groups.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The implied message to GLBT students, staff, and families was that they are &lsquo;invalid&rsquo; or &lsquo;abnormal,&rsquo;&rdquo; says Stephanie Hazen of Rainbow Families, a group that advocates for GLBT families. &ldquo;This was an incredibly harmful and discriminatory message to send, and contributed to a school environment in which GLBT students, staff and families felt marginalized.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The old wording was replaced with a policy that directs school teachers and staff to treat LGBT subjects &ldquo;in a respectful manner that is age-appropriate, factual, and pertinent to the relevant curriculum.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We hope that this language will finally allow the Anoka-Hennepin district to address GLBT-related issues in a forthright manner, and foster a climate conducive to success for all students,&rdquo; said Phil Duran, staff attorney for OutFront Minnesota, the state&rsquo;s largest GLBT advocacy organization. &ldquo;This change of direction is refreshing and the culmination of several years&rsquo; work by dedicated community and board members.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Anoka Hennepin School District is the largest district in the state, serving 40,600 students in more than a dozen communities in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis, including Anoka, Champlin, Coon Rapids, Andover, Blaine, Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Dayton, Fridley, Ham Lake, Nowthen, Oak Grove and Ramsey.<br \/><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/minnesotaindependent.com\/26192\/states-largest-school-district-ends-anti-gay-policy\" ><br \/>GO TO ORIGINAL &ndash; THE MINNESOTA INDEPENDENT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Minnesota)- For more than a decade, the Anoka-Hennepin School Board had a policy that forbade teachers and students from speaking about homosexuality, except to describe it as abnormal or invalid. But the board Monday [Feb. 9\/09] approved a more inclusive policy after years of work by community members to make the district more accepting of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary-archives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}