Colorado mountain school district receives grant to support LGBTQ+ student group
A high school in Gypsum's Gender and Sexuality Alliance just got a big boost from a national organization looking to back local efforts to support students in Colorado and beyond.
The It Gets Better organization reports it has awarded nearly $1.5 million and 142 grants to middle and high schools across the United States and Canada. Its "50 States, 50 Grants, 5,000 Voices" project netted $10,000 in grant money to the school to help them "identify and elevate future LGBTQ+ leaders by providing them with the means to create communities where they can thrive."
The school's GSA is run by students and supervised by Brendan Daly, a math teacher at the school, as well as Mads Partridge, the executive director of Mountain Pride, a local nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Seniors Jason Kennelly and Liam Dunn help lead discussions, as well as activities in their after-school meetings for anyone interested in joining, whether they are members of the LGBTQ+ community or simply an ally.
With the money awarded through the grant, the group hopes to establish sensitivity training for the teachers in the school, helping them respect students and their identities, create opportunities for students to use already-existing gender-neutral bathrooms in the school, and host a "queer prom" this spring with help from Mountain Pride. These steps are all intended to make students feel comfortable and seen, regardless of their differences and how society as a whole may treat them. It's intended to help students want to push past struggles.
"The suicidal ideation rates, lack of access to resources, to supportive environments," Partridge said. "The sheer statistics to show the mental health rates of our LGBTQ youth, it's important they know they have support."
Daly said he sees the pressure not just locally, but nationally too. He believes the GSA has provided a safe place for students to be themselves, and while he dodged credit laying all the accomplishments of the group at the student's feet, he said sponsoring the club has been an integral part of his time at the school.
"The problem is right now, our kids in the national discourse are seeing directly that they are not valued," Daly said.
"I mean, look at what's going on in Florida right now," he continued. "There's laws in place where, if I was teaching there, I couldn't even acknowledge that my students exist."
But they very much exist, and are doing what they can to help lead students who are like them to a more stable place. Kennelly and Dunn said even in their short time they've seen the school become less hostile, and while there is still some work to do, the progress they've made for themselves and the student body as a whole gives them the strength to keep pushing forward.
"It's changing the cultural norms here at our schools." Dunn explained. "That's the biggest part."
