Boots & Sabers

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Tag: Gay Straight Alliance

GSA Letter to West Bend Committee

I wrote a few days ago about the West Bend GSA complaining to the school district’s Human Growth and Development Advisory Committee about the lack of student representation on the committee. This was funny because there are actually already three student representatives on the committee, so the GSA’s complaint was completely baseless. A little homework on their part would have gone a long way…

Since then, a kind reader sent me a copy of the entire letter. Here is the full thing. Two things stuck out to me – besides their complete misfire about student representation. First, some of the things they are advocating be taught to high schoolers are more about teaching them how to have sex – not teaching them to be safe about it if they do. For example, explaining about lubrication, sex for pleasure, and a laundry list of different kinds of sex acts have little to do with keeping kids safe.

The second thing that caught my eye was the tone of the letter. It is haughty, accusatory, and insulting to opposing viewpoints. It looks exactly like it was written by some teenagers. While it would be fine for a first draft, I would have thought that the faculty adviser would have taken the opportunity to help them craft their concerns into an appropriate communication for a government committee. You know… one that would have the best chance of getting their concerns addressed. But no… instead it is a childish letter written about a very serious subject. It’s a shame, really. These kids missed out on an educational opportunity.

West Bend GSA Group Fires Blanks

This is kind of funny. The West Bend School District has a formed a Human Growth and Development Advisory Committee to revamp the sex education curriculum for the district. The committee is formed from representatives from the various stakeholders in the district. It’s a tough job on such a sensitive and controversial subject, but it appears that they have been working fairly well so far.

The school district’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) filed a complaint with the chairman of the committee. Most of the letter is a lengthy history of how the GSA feels they have been wronged in the past, but the heart of their complaint is that they assert that the committee doesn’t have any student representation as required by statute. According to the Daily News, the GSA says, “The Legislature clearly understood that input from the student body was both appropriate and necessary… Given the district’s record of mistreatment of the GSA, we suggest that the WBSD consider appointment of a student member of the GSA to this committee.” It continues, “In any event, we would assume that the committee is statutorily unable to proceed unless and until this oversight is cured.”

There’s one problem… the committee already has student representation Three representatives, actually. They just haven’t been showing up at the meetings. The chairman of the committee tells the paper, ““We do have two student representatives designated from the high schools and one from the middle school, but they have not been present.”

Done. The GSA’s complaint is moot. Moving on…

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