First of all, this isn't a new idea. Harvey Milk High School in New York City is a school designed around providing safe space for students who are experiencing discrimination because of gender or sexuality. It's also very successful, which a much higher graduation rate than the majority of NY Public High Schools.

Second, I find it mildly offensive that you refer to the problems gay kids (or kids perceived as gay) have in high school as teasing. Sure, gay kids get teased. They also sometimes get beaten (occasionally fatally), raped, emotionally abused, harassed, and targeted for humiliation. They are often abandoned by parents, ostracized from their communities, and left with little or no options for support.

I think providing a safe place for these kids that helps meet their emotional needs, helps them deal with trauma, and supports them in seeing role models that they can connect to as a good thing. For some kids, sometimes. Other kids will be fine in their neighborhood schools or will excel in other environments. But it is great to have the options.

The fact that discrimination and abuse are also experienced by other groups of children and teens is not a great argument for not creating the school. Perhaps instead, we should be creating more safe spaces for other communities of kids in crisis. Or creating structures inside existing schools to better meet the needs of these kids.

One of the arguments I've heard against inclusion for autistic kid is the amount of abuse they would get from neurotypical peers. If you feel that way, I guess schools specializing in autism could be seen as a way to keep to keep these kids from being harassed. Personally, I'd rather see sensitivity training in typical schools, but if it's your kid who's getting a level of grief that prevents any learning I could see looking for any way out.

I know of two different gay students who have been attacked in Baltimore in the last two weeks. Homophobia is a major problem in our schools and it needs to be dealt with.

I shared the Chicago Tribune article with my advisory today. Their response was uniform in its homophobia, needless to say I'm going to do a lot of follow up. My guess is that you would receive near identical answers from any Bmore City Public School students.

In response to the question, do you think opening a gay high school is a good idea, why or why not?

-It's a good idea because I don't like homosexuals

-It's a bad idea because when the gay people see straight people they they won't no what to do because they were with the same kind all the time. And that is encouragine them to be gay.

-Being gay is against my beliefs. I believe the only couples should be man and women

-I think it's good to them kind of school thats the way we wont have to hang with them

-It is a good idea because you won't have to worry about gay people if you're a homophobic

-I think it's a good idea because I do not want no other dude lookin at me innapropriately.

-I think it a good idea because it's all those gay and lesbian high school kids be needing a gurl or a boyfriend to do something to each other

-I think this is a bad idea because gay's are going to be doing the nasty. This is also a mad idea because it just is.

-Bad idea because they might have sexual intercourse in school. They might wanna go with every boy or girl in the school. They might drop out of school and have children. All they might learn about in class is about sexual things

-It is a bad idea for it to be a gay high school because about almost everyday people will be having sexual intercouse. That's not good. They won't be learning sh**.

-I think it's good to open up one because all gay and bi can go to the same school so they can do all that stuff to them

-Its a good idea because they are gay

-it is good because gay people won't bother us

That's about the most depressing comment I've read on this blog. With that sort of attitude I'd be terrified to allow a homosexual child to attend your school. I'm not even sure what I'd tell a child to do if they saw a kid being harassed for being gay or being accused of being gay. It sounds likes anyone bucking that unanimous disgust would have a miserable time as well. I wonder what other minority groups are equally disliked. How sad.

Corey:

Thanks for sharing this and for doing the tough thing and having students discuss the issue. There is so much phobia around so many things that it's hard to figure out where to begin. I agree with sara who states that just because kids are harassed for other things (not strong enough a word in many cases), this isn't a good argument for creating a school where the value of acceptance is one of the norms. I wonder though how far we go with this, at what point do we begin building schools for this group or that instead of doing what Corey has begun to do, which is the hard work of creating the culture in our own schools. No, I am not so naive as to think that I want this done on the backs of my own, or anyone elses kid, but I do think that creating culture needs to be done intentionally and it's really hard. Especially when the the adults are part of the issue. I know that homosexuality strikes very deep for lots of people and that this translates directly into teen attitudes. I hope for all of the kids sake that efforts by educators like Corey continue to be made.

Corey - if you ever want to change schools, let me know.

IO

In my experience, students will say things like in the comments above, but their actions are a different thing. I'm often really touched by students' (expressed, not verbalized) attitudes towards gay students. We've had gay football players who are treated the same as any jock; we've had really out and proud boys who other kids value and treat well; we've had out lesbians that wear rainbow pins and lead the girls' basketball team to championships. On another note, we've had several very out gay teachers who the students adore.

The other kids are fighting attitudes that they have been fed their whole lives, but when they actually meet fellow gay student, they see the issue humanized. This is one of the things I'd fear if we had a gay high school, for both for the gay students and the straight students - that the mixing and learning about one another will be eliminated.

Yes, harassment occurs, as it does with most students who are not part of the mainstream, but it seems our gay students, at least at our school, are doing okay (a recent year saw students elect both a gay prom king and a gay prom queen).

I also hate to bring up issues like "separate, but equal" into the discussion, but I think it's relevant: we wouldn't form a high school for one race of students because of harassment; we'd create educational programs in all the high schools to improve celebration of all cultures. Having a gay high school would eliminate that part of learning about differences, for all sides involved.

A parent, those comments do look pretty ugly standing on their own, let me give you a bit more context. We do in fact have gay students at our school and one of the things that surprised me when I first came here was how open they were about their sexual orientation and how accepted and well treated they were by other students. I've never heard of an incident where our homosexual students were abused verbally or physically due to their homosexuality.

My advisory is all 9th graders and knowing these students personally, their comments don't really bother me. They are kids and kids are largely shaped by their parents and social environment. The good news is being so young their neural networks are highly plastic. This is truly an opportunity to teach. I would guess everyone of them has been raised on the belief that gay=wrong. I encouraged them to be completely honest and I'm proud that they wrote things potentially perceived as offensive rather than dishonest nuanced crap for fear of offending me or anyone else.

The 3 themes I pulled from their comments were, it's wrong to be gay, gay people are sex crazed more so than straight people, and get them out of here so they won't hit on me. The first theme cannot be confronted without tackling religion and their parents' beliefs. I'm going to leave that alone for now. The second two themes can be easily addressed if we define terms and look at facts.

I want to emphasize that this is a system wide problem not a school-specific problem. It's time to start the conversation, as awkward and painful at times as it may be. Thanks for the kind words IO the hard work's still to come!

I agree with everything that Dana said. A gay high school may help gay students in the short term but it's a long term cop out where everyone loses.

I think there are good arguments on both sides of the issue.

The strongest argument against a "gay school" is that it doesn't seek to solve the problem in all schools, but instead just helps the students who end up going to the special school.

On the other side, I do not agree that gay students (or those who are perceived to be gay) are in the same position as others who are picked on. Studies show that the harassment of gay students is much more pervasive. Meanwhile, most teachers feel competent to respond -- and do respond -- to harassment based on race, religion, socioeconomic status, while failing to adequately deal with harassment based on sexual orientation.

I hope that I am not called homophobic or some other mean name because of my comments. That being said, why do we have to tackle religion and their parents beliefs to get students to accept students who are gay (do we need them to accept and appreciate the students for who they are or do we need to get them to agree with their lifestyle/orientation/whatever)?

Why can't we teach students to be accepting of others who may have differences of beliefs or practices without attempting to change their beliefs?

I don't need to be convinced that homosexuality is ___________ (fill in the blank) in order to treat homosexuals the way I would like to be treated.

If everyone regardless of race, religion, sex or sexual orientation would treat each other as we want to be treated, we would not have to worry about changing peoples beliefs.

I don't have to agree with you to treat you well. Why can't we teach students that?