LEHI, Utah — A Utah school district is on the defensive after outing a 14-year middle school student to his parents, claiming administrators were being “proactive” in preventing possible bullying.
Willowcreek Middle School, Lehi, UT.
The incident began last week when students in a Willowcreek Middle School class were assigned to create an advertisement about themselves to hang on the classroom wall.
One 14-year-old student’s ad was about him being gay.
The teacher asked the student if he wanted his ad put up on the wall, and he responded yes.
But school officials later worried that the student might be a potential target for bullying because of negative comments overheard in the hallway, according to Alpine School District spokeswoman Rhonda Bromley.
“If there is the potential for a bullying or a harassment situation, it’s the responsibility of the school to step in and to make sure the student is safe,” she said.
The assistant principal decided it was important to let the boy’s parents know about their concerns over bullying, and after the student “reluctantly” agreed to let school officials contact his parents, they informed the boy’s parents that their son is gay. At the boy’s request, he was not present when his parents were told.
Valerie Larabee, director of the Utah Pride Center, said she was “disturbed” by the incident.
“It’s important to me that school officials deal with bullying issues and don’t cause another problem for the child by outing him to his parents,” she said. “That conversation can be really devastating to young people when their family rejects them. Once you’ve uttered the words, ‘I’m gay,’ your home life can change forever.”
“The administrator did exactly the right thing,” said Bromley, defending the school’s action. “We are not going to back down. We take bullying very, very seriously.”
The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network urged caution in these situations.
“Schools should not out LGBT students without their consent,” said GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard. “Outing a student not only violates their right to privacy, but also could compromise their safety. Parents can be notified of their child being bullied at school, but without disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
A Facebook page was launched in support of the student, but Bromley said some of the information on the page was inaccurate, including the claim that the district suspended the student. She said his parents chose to keep him home from school this week.
Filed under: Utah
Florida teen fighting criminal charges related to same-sex relationship
Wash. florist who refused flowers for gay couple’s wedding files suit against state
Texas judge enforces ‘morality clause’ to split up lesbian couple
Catholic school: Transgender student must wear girl’s graduation gown
Another Ore. bakery refuses to provide wedding cake for same-sex couple
Matt Barber tweets homophobic cartoon of gay man tricking Boy Scout into sex
UPDATED: Police call fatal New York City shooting an anti-gay hate crime
Details emerge in case against teen accused of lewd behavior with girlfriend
Parents sue S.C. hospital over child’s gender assignment surgery
Scottish cardinal to atone for sexual misconduct with younger clergy
Iowa anti-gay activist explains his opposition to gay marriage: ‘It’s awful’
BREAKING: Minn. governor signs marriage equality bill — ‘Love is the law’
BREAKING: French president signs marriage equality bill into law
Everything is bigger in Texas – even the homophobia
Pa. school still refuses to announce transgender grad by his chosen name
Oh geez, here goes Utah again!
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
BOGUS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wht haoppen to the Good ld Day’s when we would fight back?
Woah! Not cool!
Outing someone doesn not prevent bullying! Education of your students prevents bullying! OMGAY get a clue str8 people….the ignorance is killing MY people! YOUR KIDS! :(
Now how is outing a student to his/her parents going to help stop the bullying?
Not cool, especially with how twisted and backstabbing some families are.
NOT NOT COOL
Outing is not cool! What if the Parents decide to kick him out because of him being Gay?
And some people wonder why the “It Gets Better” thing is a crock of shit…
that is messed up! completely not right of the school to disclose that information to the student’s parents…ridiculous!
.
U.T.A.H. – Undermining Transsexuals And Homosexuals
lol. i’d sue
Ok breeders… You shouldn’t out people. We shouldn’t even do it to our own people. These things take time. Encouraging him to tell his family through counseling would have been the better option.
look, this isn’t cool mostly because 14 year olds aren’t really sure about their sexuality yet. Hell, most college students aren’t all that sure about their sexuality. It’s screwed up. But, hey wasn’t utah the place where they wouldn’t let the lesbian couple go to prom? Seems like a fucked up place to me
what do you expect form the mormon church.. arent hey the ones bankrolling nom?
I wouldn’t condemn the school to the fullest extent because it did seem like they had the best intentions, that they really wanted to help the student. However, they did not go about it in an appropriate manner at all. The school shouldn’t be intervening with his home life at all, unless of course he was in danger which wasn’t the case.
I don’t understand this…how does this PREVENT bullying? Many gay kids are bullied not only in school, but by their religious families, and for those who are not overly religious, many make it a point to voice disapproval about being gay. I keep saying: Teachers aren’t the only ones who need sensitivity training. They need to have these discussions and the atmosphere needs to be one of: Anti-LGBT bullying won’t be tolerated here! THAT’S how you prevent bullying!
How many of you actually read the article? The boy outted himself at school. If I were his parent I would want to know too.
The only thing the school system there is doing is making sure those kids have as hard a time at home as in school if their parents happen to be homophobic/religiously opposed to their identity and end up kicking them out of their homes. Idiots
Lehi is a small Mormon town. Not right of them to do it but sure is no surprise that they did. I hope the outed person has used this misfortune to help with communication. If anything??
It was done maliciously, without the boy consent, so his parents can “fix” him to become “normal” and to serve a mission, married and pretend that all is fine…Full crap!!!!
Ironic. They claim they were trying to prevent him from possibly being bullied, when all they’ve done was painted a bull’s eye on this kid’s head.
Seems like the kid outed himself when he was willing to put up a poster of his orientation. He felt safe enough to do it at school. Just from the information in the article, seems the kid needed a little help in telling his parents. Appears the school had the best intentions, not a whole lot of precedence for this. IMHO, I think it would have ben best if that parents and the child were all together and the child was supported in telling his parents himself. Just my two cents, for what it’s worth.
….and because they are in Utah, how does it make them bad malicious people? We have to be better then the narrow minded bigoted haters you’re condemning. You’re no better then the people you condemn.
the world is ful of jerkheads sometimes
I wonder if that was their real reason….Maybe they wanted the parents to “fix” him.
POTENTIAL for Bullying?!?!? Outing the student is a form of Bullying! (IMO anyway)
only thing to say to this is ”W.T.F.???”
They should be ashamed of themselves they have no idea of the ramifications that their actions could cause. Not every parent is supportive of their child, they had no idea of how the parents feel about homosexuality, and in fact were way off base in saying that their actions would be a preventive action against bullying. What if his parents are keeping him home to punish him for being gay? They were way off base with this. What a shame that we live in a society when a child can get an abortion without parental consent but can’t live proudly in who they are without the school feeling like the child should first have parental consent. How utterly ridiculous.
wow, i must be the only gay on here who thinks what the school did was correct and pro-active….this kid outed himself to his whole school without telling his family??? what the hell was this kid thinking????
In USA, just as much as in Canada, a school employee is restricted by confidentiality as soon as the student reaches 14 years old. This kid is in his right to sue the school.
And no,as soon as the kid is 14 years old, the school has no right to violate his privacy, even for telling parents that the kid is bullied without his consent. That’s the Law.
@Bill, you seem to have no understanding of the law protecting citizens’ confidentiality as soon as this citizen has reached 14 years old. Check the Law.
To be fair, I point out the school did ask the child whether he agreed to let them tell his parents he was gay in their explanation of concern over bullying. Had they told the parents they were concerned about the bullying of their child without stating why, the parents would have asked anyway. At least the kid could choose not to be there when someone else outed him.
I do wonder why he felt safe enough to hang his ad at his school admitting himself as gay to his peers, but had not come out to his parents. There may have been a reason he had not come out to them yet, same as I have not done for my aunts, uncles and grandparents. I know some of them are homophobic, bullying doesn’t just occur in school.
Honestly, what else could they have done? Told the kid he couldn’t post it? Had him post it and maybe get bullied without the paret’s understanding why? At least in this case if the child suffers for it the school system already knows what’s going on at home and can look out for danger signs.
If they had told him he couldn’t post the asignment then they could have gotten into trouble for discrimination. If they hadn’t informed the parents they could have been sued for allowing him to be put in harms way without informing them as has happened in other states. This is as much a fault of us as a community. Where were we when the teacher was presented with this moral dilema?
get with it people
utterly and totally unacceptable!
My reading of the article is that the young man ‘outed’ himself with his poster that included his sexual orientation, that he chose to make the poster ‘public’, at least in school, when given that choice, and that the school had reason to believe that he would be subjected to bullying. The student gave consent for the reason for possible bullying, his being gay, to be told to his parents, though reluctantly. What is missing in the article is what happened to the potential bully(s) who were overheard making negative remarks in the local public commons, the school hallways? Were they outed as homophobic or mean or dangerous to their parents as part of a proactive school policy? I would like more info, seems that sort of parent/ student / school collaberation to proactively discourage bullying would be a given, but no info in this article.
I am a straight married woman and I support gay rights. I feel this was handled poorly. Bullies should be deadly with not the person being bullied. I would love it if this kid said hey i’m 14, 14 yr old say and do crazy things, now you’ve ruined my life and sue them.I don’t care if he’s gay or not. I just think it would teach those ignorant people a lesson. They’re supposed to ensure children’s well-being not potentially harm them. I don’t understand why people care who other people love. How exactly does it harm or affect them? Quit trying to force your beliefs on oher people. I support your right to believe what you want, you must also support my beliefs, whetherer you agree with them our not
Above I meant bullies should be dealt with (Swype changed it to deadly). If everyone followed the golden rule the world would be a much safer and happier place. I wish the best for everyone.