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Pikesville High School Students to Rally for Inclusiveness
Organizers Say Students Should be Free to Be Themselves and also Feel Safe
Pikesville, Md -- Anti-gay rhetoric of protesters outside of Pikesville High School Monday was so disturbing to several students, including some involved with the school’s gay-straight alliance (GSA), that several pupils are planning a “show of support” for an educational environment of inclusiveness this Thursday. Upon hearing about activities surrounding National Coming Out Week sponsored by the GSA, anti-gay members of a church from outside Pikesville organized a protest yesterday encouraging gay students to “embrace Jesus Christ” and “abandon the homosexual lifestyle.”
“We’re proud to go to a progressive school that believes in providing a safe space for all its students,” said Reed Shusterman, one of the students organizing the speak-out. “We don’t want anyone, either from within the school or outside the school, intimidating students and making them feel unwelcome in the place they come to learn every day.”
According to a report issued by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network in October, the second most common reason for frequent harassment in school is sexual orientation. An alarming one-third (33%) of teens in a national study of over 3,400 students aged 13-18 report that students are frequently harassed because they are or are perceived to be lesbian, gay or bisexual.
"This is not a day where students were going to go on morning announcements and come out,” says Principal Dorothy Hardin to WJZ-TV. “They are not going to be presenting themselves as coming out. The message of our students are one of tolerance, understanding, awareness. Those elements are part of the American quilt.”
Students will convene at the close of the school day, from 2:30-5:30 p.m. on Thursday, at the corner of Labyrinth and Smith, right outside the school.
Contact:
Reed Shusterman, Event Organizer and Senior at Pikesville High School
(410) 303-6104 cell
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Duty done.
Doesn't it ever seem like we're going over the same thing again and again? Like, it seems like someone's already done this? As if, someone's stuck doing something over and over again?
Organizers Say Students Should be Free to Be Themselves and also Feel Safe
Pikesville, Md -- Anti-gay rhetoric of protesters outside of Pikesville High School Monday was so disturbing to several students, including some involved with the school’s gay-straight alliance (GSA), that several pupils are planning a “show of support” for an educational environment of inclusiveness this Thursday. Upon hearing about activities surrounding National Coming Out Week sponsored by the GSA, anti-gay members of a church from outside Pikesville organized a protest yesterday encouraging gay students to “embrace Jesus Christ” and “abandon the homosexual lifestyle.”
“We’re proud to go to a progressive school that believes in providing a safe space for all its students,” said Reed Shusterman, one of the students organizing the speak-out. “We don’t want anyone, either from within the school or outside the school, intimidating students and making them feel unwelcome in the place they come to learn every day.”
According to a report issued by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network in October, the second most common reason for frequent harassment in school is sexual orientation. An alarming one-third (33%) of teens in a national study of over 3,400 students aged 13-18 report that students are frequently harassed because they are or are perceived to be lesbian, gay or bisexual.
"This is not a day where students were going to go on morning announcements and come out,” says Principal Dorothy Hardin to WJZ-TV. “They are not going to be presenting themselves as coming out. The message of our students are one of tolerance, understanding, awareness. Those elements are part of the American quilt.”
Students will convene at the close of the school day, from 2:30-5:30 p.m. on Thursday, at the corner of Labyrinth and Smith, right outside the school.
Contact:
Reed Shusterman, Event Organizer and Senior at Pikesville High School
(410) 303-6104 cell
----
Duty done.
Doesn't it ever seem like we're going over the same thing again and again? Like, it seems like someone's already done this? As if, someone's stuck doing something over and over again?