A middle school for LGBTQ+ teens will open in Arizona next year. Public vouchers will fund it.

The Queer Blended Learning Center, a microschool, will launch in Phoenix, Arizona, next year for middle school students. Housed at one∙n∙ten, a nonprofit that serves LGBTQ+ youth, parents will be able to pay for tuition with education vouchers.

While the class size may be small, the impact on students’ lives will be enormous. So far, only about a half-dozen students are enrolled, but the class size could potentially double.

Related:

Arizona governor signs two executive orders protecting LGBTQ+ rights

Katie Hobbs has repeatedly made it clear she stands with LGBTQ+ people.

“We’re seeing nationally that LGBTQ youth are, frankly, under attack legislatively,” one∙n∙ten CEO Nate Rhoton told the Arizona Republic. “It’s deadly to the youth that we serve.”

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The state legislature passed a bill this year that would have required students to use the restrooms and locker rooms associated with their sex assigned at birth, no matter a student’s gender. The bill would have also allowed cisgender students to sue the school district if they saw a transgender person of the same gender in the restroom with them.

Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed the bill. Republicans do not have the two-thirds majority required to overcome her veto.

Students will learn conflict resolution skills, history lessons that specifically include LGBTQ+ people, and social studies courses that include, according to Darla Baquedano, director of education for Spark Community Schools, “history and government and civics… through the lens of populations and communities that aren’t always prevalent in traditional textbooks.”

Reading, writing, math, and science classes will be taught via an online portal that allows individual assessments of students’ academic levels.

It’s a program the students can “see themselves reflected in,” she said. “We thought that that was very important.”