GLSEN ‘Safe Space’ program includes OkEq

Staff Report

(Tulsa) The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has included Tulsa’s Oklahomans for Equality (OkEq) in their “Safe Space” anti-bullying education program. The three-year campaign has been an effort to distribute a GLSEN Safe Space Kit to every middle and high school in the country – a goal of 63,000 schools.

GLSEN campaign gives schools a resource to inform and empower educators to make classrooms safer for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students. The “Safe Space Kit” includes GLSEN Safe Space posters and stickers, and a 42-page guide to being an ally to LGBT students. Nearly 100,000 kits and 1 million Safe Space stickers were distributed as part of the campaign.

“We celebrate the completion of a campaign that rallied a broad and powerful network of communities, organizations and individuals determined to ensure that every LGBT student in this country has access to potentially life-saving support,” GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said. “We are so grateful to everyone who stood with GLSEN to take action to make our schools safer and more supportive places for LGBT youth. I hope they are all proud of what we have done together.”

According to GLSEN’s 2011 National School Climate Survey:

·       Nearly 82% of LGBT students experienced harassment at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation and more than 63.9% because of their gender expression.

·       More than 63% felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and nearly 44% because of their gender expression.

The report also found that supportive educators play a critical role in making schools safer and more inclusive for LGBT students.The more supportive educators who students could identify, the greater their academic achievement, sense of school belonging, attendance and educational aspirations, and the less likely they were to say they felt unsafe in school.

GLSEN also received support from dozens of corporate partners committed to improving the school experiences of LGBT students. These partners made a historic multi-year commitment to the campaign that not only included funding, but also volunteers across the country, such as those at OkEq, to distribute the kits. The campaign also won $250,000 in the Pepsi Refresh Challenge online voting contest.

“Every student deserves to feel safe in school, and today we are confident that schools are safer for LGBT students than they were three years ago,” Byard concluded.

The Gayly – January 13, 2014 @ 6:40am