By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: September 13, 2011
ANOKA, Minn. — The eight student suicides in two years have been a painful challenge to the Anoka-Hennepin school district.
School officials say that while two of the students were known to have been gay, they found no evidence that bullying had a significant role in any of the suicides. A group of parents, teachers and former friends of the dead students, in contrast, say that at least four of them were definitely gay or bisexual and had struggled with harassment.
Tammy Aaberg, 37, said her son Justin had been happy on the surface — a last photograph shows a blond boy building a sand castle. Only after he hanged himself in July 2010, at 15, did she learn from his friends about hidden torments.
He had been maliciously outed in the eighth grade, she learned, and was sometimes shoved and called names. Toward the end of ninth grade, three months before his death, a classmate told him he would go to hell because he was gay.
No suicide is simple, but Ms. Aaberg has joined the call for a more staff training and a more affirming curriculum. She now wonders, she said tearfully, whether he did not protest his harassment “because he thought he deserved it.”
Kyle Rooker, 14, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing the district of failing to protect gay students, sank into a severe depression last spring after constant harassment by students who perceived him as gay. His parents moved him to a school in another district where, they said, the atmosphere has been friendlier.
Brittany Geldert, 14, another plaintiff, has called herself bisexual since seventh grade and said she had repeatedly been called “dyke” while teachers looked the other way. Her grades plummeted, her poetry took a dark turn and she has been hospitalized for severe depression and suicidal thoughts. She is staying in the district and hopes things will be better in high school.
Another plaintiff, Damian, 14, whose parents did not want his last name used, says he has been called names and shoved because he is the adopted son of gay parents, and called gay himself because he is a gymnast. Jason Backes, one of his fathers, said that the family had complained repeatedly to the school without relief and that officials had responded in a way that embarrassed Damian — having him leave classes several minutes early to avoid hallway encounters.
“The opponents say we want to teach about gay sex in the classroom, but that’s the last thing we want,” Mr. Backes said.
“We’re not asking them to promote anything,” he said. “But if a kid has gay parents, or is gay or lesbian, why can’t the school say, ‘You’re O.K.’?”
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário