New York plans to open what may be the first public high school in the United States for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, a move critics charge is a step backward in education.
<bf> <nm>The Harvey Milk High School, an expansion of a city program consisting of two small classrooms for gay students, will accommodate about 100 teenagers in a newly renovated building in September. By 2004, enrolment is expected to climb to 170 students, the Department of Education said yesterday.
"Everybody feels that it's a good idea because some of the kids who are gays and lesbians have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools and this . . . lets them get an education without having to worry," Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters.
But even before the school opens its doors there is unease in some quarters about segregating students within the public education system.
"We desegregated schools on racial lines years ago because we found it absolutely unacceptable. Now this feels like a step backwards toward segregation along sexual-orientation lines," said Anthony Paré, chair of the department of integrated studies in education at McGill University.
In Canada and the United States, several school boards have adopted programs to help gay students. The Toronto District School Board, for example, has the Triangle Program, a separate classroom setting to help students who have been affected by homophobia in the mainstream school system.
However, New York describes its stand-alone school as a first, nationwide.
Prof. Paré said there shouldn't be a need to create a school for gay students, especially at a time when a person's sexual orientation is more widely accepted than ever.
"It's really unfortunate that gay and lesbian kids are feeling this insecure that we have to create a school for them," he said. "We better fix the problem, not avoid doing something about it."
Named after San Francisco's first openly gay city supervisor, the New York school is an expansion of a program that began in 1984. The gay-rights youth advocacy group, the Hetrick-Martin Institute, has managed the program.
Principal William Salzman told the New York Post that the school will follow mandatory English and math programs. It will also specialize in computer technology, arts and culinary training.
The Hetrick-Martin Web site said students will have "an opportunity to obtain [a secondary-school] education in a safe and supportive environment. . . . We believe that success requires the ability to respect and value the diverse human community."
Noble Kelly, a high-school teacher in Vancouver and a member of the non-profit Gay And Lesbian Educators of British Columbia, said a school specifically geared for gay teenagers provides an option to students who lack much needed support in the mainstream system.
Although Mr. Kelly said he would prefer to educate all teenagers on sexual orientation as opposed to segregating some, he has seen the harassment that gay students have had to endure.
"I've seen great strides, but I've also seen many ignorant people," he said. "It's better to have the diversity available to all students. But there are students who literally cannot survive in homophobic situations."
But New York State Conservative Party chairman Mike Long criticized the creation of the New York school. "Is there a different way to teach homosexuals? Is there gay math? This is wrong," he told the Post. "There's no reason these children should be treated separately."
Marc Fey, education policy analyst for the group Focus on the Family, echoes these sentiments, saying the school is the result of a politically driven education philosophy.
"We're missing the mark on preparing students academically. A big reason for that is we've got these other agendas that are at work in the education setting," he said in an interview.
"Kids are picked on for a lot of different reasons," he added. "Pulling kids out based on their differences postpones dealing with the real issues."
With a report from Associated Press
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