LGBTQ2SIA+ Student Success Plan

Research Review

As noted in the previous section, LGBTQ2SIA+ students are attuned to their own needs to elevate their own strengths and resilience. This resilience and strength manifests in myriad ways – from showing up to school even when facing threatening or inhospitable school climates to staying engaged in class even when their experiences and identities are consistently excluded from curriculum.

When education, health, mental health, and criminal justice systems fail to recognize students’ strengths and address their needs, these students must navigate a multitude of barriers. This is especially acute for students whose LGBTQ2SIA+ identity intersects with other historically marginalized identities, who must navigate racism in addition to homophobia and transphobia. While the previous section of this report used qualitative data (i.e. stories and anecdotes from students) to illustrate the day-to-day individual-level experiences of students, this section synthesizes data and research from national and Oregon-specific studies about how students’ inherent strengths are impeded by systemic and institutional barriers including but not limited to racism.

It is important to note that Oregon currently does not have a statewide school climate survey to assess youth experiences and well-being at school, which can help systematically understand disparities and identify opportunities for improvement from students’ own lens. Instead, much of the Oregon-specific data described here is based on a national nonprofit’s 2017 national survey that contains Oregon-specific data, and an Oregon Health Authority survey that provides some insight on in-school experiences. Using these and other data sources, the Oregon Safe Schools and Communities Coalition has published seven annual reports on the State of Safe Schools that provides a much more far-reaching research and data analysis regarding the issues pertaining to LGBTQ youth than what is intended to be presented here.

While this discussion does not intend to be a comprehensive picture of all of the issues facing LGBTQ2SIA+ youth in our schools and our communities, it does describe how individual actions rooted in bias translates into isolation, fear, and disconnection that systematically prevents students from thriving in areas of health, mental health, and education. These findings helped to inform the recommendations.

The key takeaways from this research synthesis are:

• Research Finding #1: Individual acts of bias, assault, and harassment in school are a regular threat throughout LGBTQ student experiences in school and impact student mental health, well-being, and student success.
• Research Finding #2: Individual biases shape the institutional policies and practices that underlie LGBTQ students’ adverse experiences.
  

Research Finding #1: Individual acts of bias, assault, and harassment in school is a regular threat throughout LGBTQ student experiences in school and impact student mental health, well-being, and student success.

A 2019 survey conducted among 8th and 11th grade students in Oregon schools found that 6 out of 10 lesbian, gay, or bisexual 8th graders reported being bullied within the last month due to race, gender, sexual orientation, or body shaming. In comparison, 2 out of 10 straight students reported this form of bullying. In addition, 22% of gender diverse 8th graders reported being threatened with a weapon on school property compared to 17% of sexual orientation minorities, and 10% among 8th graders overall. Despite being one of just 21 states that requires all school districts to have anti-bullying policies that explicitly prohibit bullying due to race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and many other protected classes , Oregon’s rates of reported bullying are on par with the national rates.

Rates of physical harm are high as well - nearly 3 out of 10 LGBTQ students were physically harassed due to their sexual orientation and nearly 1 out of 4 were physically harassed due to their gender expression. This harm translates to nearly 6 out of 10 LGBTQ students feeling unsafe because of their sexual orientation and nearly half because of their gender expression.

It is critical to note that students of color who are LGBTQ are at greater risk of experiencing in-school victimization than their LGBTQ peers who are white. Figure B is a chart from GLSEN’s National School Climate survey (2017) that shows how in-school victimization clusters to create compounded impact against students because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender expression. For example, nearly half of LGBTQ students who identified as Native American, American Indian, or Alaska Native reported the victimization based on their racial/ethnic identity and about three-quarters experienced victimization based on their gender expression and sexual orientation.

Just as LGBTQ students of color face compounded impacts due to their intersectional marginalized identities, so too do LGBTQ students with disabilities. LGBTQ students with disabilities are more likely to feel unsafe, and more likely to miss school due to safety concerns compared to LGBTQ students without disabilities. For example, as shown in Figure C, nearly 40% of LGBTQ students with disabilities missed school in the past month because of safety concerns compared to 32% of LGBTQ students without disabilities according to national data. While data to compare this to Oregon students was not available at the time of writing, we do know that overall in Oregon 8th and 11th grade LGBTQ+ youth (regardless of whether they experience disability) were twice as likely as non-LGBTQ youth to have missed school at least once in the past month because they felt unsafe; rates among gender diverse students were even higher.

Further, when curriculum makes invisible the intersectional identities of these students, when restrooms or locker rooms fail to recognize their gender, when teachers and other adults fail to act on the reports of racism, implicit bias, harassment, or assault, we see the impacts in adverse mental health outcomes. The 2019 Oregon Health Authority Survey found LGBTQ students to be at greater risk of adverse mental health conditions, particularly related to suicide and suicide ideation. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Oregonians aged 10 to 24 , and the Oregon Health Authority survey found that about half of gender diverse or LGB 8th grade students considered suicide (compared to 20% of all 8th graders). Nearly 1 in 3 of them had actually attempted suicide.

Research Finding #2: Individual biases shape the institutional policies and practices that underlie LGBTQ2IA+ students’ adverse experiences.

Policy and practice are at the mercy of the people tasked with leading them. Because all people are acculturated with beliefs through television, other media, education, religion, cultural values, and much more, individuals maintain a schema, or worldview, that often normalizes heterosexual, binary (male/female), and white dominant values. This becomes problematic when leaders with institutional authority over policies and procedures hold biases, whether implicit or explicit, that result in discriminatory attitudes and behaviors towards a protected class of people. These policies and practices are wide-ranging -- from school discipline to lack of access to gender-inclusive restrooms or locker room facilities to daily occurrences that marginalize LGBTQ2SIA+ identities, minimize their strengths, and create institutional barriers to their success.

• Disproportionate “push out” of LGBTQSIA+ youth of color. One example of how individual perceptions can influence the policies of education institutions is disproportionate “push out” of school of LGBTQ youth. One of the only national studies that examines disproportionality in school discipline over time among LGBTQ youth found that LGBTQ youth were consistently pushed out of school, stopped by police, arrested, and convicted of crime in juvenile court at higher rates than non-LGBTQ youth. While this data was published nearly a decade ago, more recent qualitative data collection efforts by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network upholds the trend. An individual interviewed for that study named the problem as follows, “When you’re talking about the [School to Prison Pipeline] you do need to consider every piece of someone’s identity. So if you’re a youth of color and you’re also LGBT you are a higher risk of being pushed out of school because…of racism within our school system and because of homophobia in our school system.” This observation is clearly reflected in the data: while LGBTQ youth are estimated to comprise 5% to 7% of the youth population overall, they represent over 15% of those in the juvenile justice system. And nationally, while Black and Latino students comprise less than 40% of the school population across the country, nearly half of the students who are arrested for school-based incidences are Black and Latino. It’s clear that when racial identities intersect with sexual orientation and gender identities, the likelihood of push out is greater.
  
• School policies can marginalize experiences of and limit opportunities for youth who do not fit dominant gender or sexual orientation cultural norms. Cultural norms that stigmatize people with diverse gender identities and sexual orientations shape the policies that education institutions create and maintain. These policies conflict with the identities that many students hold for themselves. In a 2017 survey done by GLSEN among Oregon LGBTQ students, nearly 3 out of 5 students reported that their educational institution subjected them to at least one form of discriminatory policy or practice related to their sexual orientation or gender expression. Nearly 1 out of 4 Oregon LGBTQ students “were disciplined for public displays of affection that did not result in similar action for non-LGBTQ students.” This suggests that the adults who disciplined the students had underlying individual beliefs that are biased toward their own definition of “normal” (referred to as heteronormative, or beliefs that only “straight” couples are normal, acceptable, or preferred).
  Figure D details the percentages of Oregon LGBTQ2SIA+ students that were discriminated against in a number of day-to-day experiences. Overall, 1 in 3 LGBTQ2SIA+ students reported being able to use a restroom aligned with their gender identity and nearly as many were prevented from using their chosen name or pronouns in school.
  The day-to-day experiences of discrimination, bias, and erasure that many LGBTQ2SIA+ students face creates conditions that challenges their wellbeing and academic success. Comparing student achievement of LGBTQ2SIA+ students to non-LGBTQ2SIA+ students is challenging because the demographic data collected at the student level limits the ability to correlate sexual orientation to individual school achievement. However, the Oregon Department of Education is one of just two state agencies that has recently developed data collection protocols to allow students with gender expansive identities to select a non-binary option among gender categories. Using this data, when compared across gender identity, students who are non-binary have lower rates of graduation and regular school attendance compared to male and female students. As shown in Figure E, in the 2018-19 cohort of high school graduates, 65% of non-binary students graduated within 4 years compared to 83% of female students and 77% of male students. Similar trends exist regarding attendance patterns, illustrating that non-binary students are less likely to attend school regularly. Taken in the context of the research and youth engagement, these data demonstrate the outcome of many day-to-day acts of bias and exclusion that occur in schools.
  It is important to note that these data do not suggest an inherent deficit in non-binary students ability to achieve, but rather a deficit of the system that is charged with ensuring all student success. In order to adequately address the issues LGBTQ2SIA+ that students face in school, the research indicates the importance of confronting the role of individual and institutional bias in developing and implementing policy. This is particularly true for supporting students whose LGBTQ2SIA+ identity intersects with other historically marginalized identities.

State Policy Challenges

Oregon has taken several significant policy actions to support the strengths and needs of LGBTQ2SIA+ youth inside and outside of schools over the past decade. The Oregon Equality Act, passed in 2007, is a key foundational policy that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression in public school education, other public services, housing, and employment (race, ethnicity, and many other factors were previously prohibited). In 2016, the Oregon Department of Education issued guidance to school districts regarding safe and supportive school environments for transgender students (discussed in greater detail later). In 2019, the state created Adi’s Act (SB 52), requiring all school districts to have clear suicide prevention policies and procedures. This legislation was passed in honor of Adi Staub, a transgender student who died by suicide in 2017.

Oregon has several other education policies that are intended to create safe and inclusive spaces for LGBTQ2SIA+ students and students of color. As the previous sections documenting Oregon youth experiences and research showed, many of these students demonstrate resilience as they continue to show up to a school system that is not designed to honor or even make visible their lived experience. In reality, the implementation of many of these well-intended education policies has not realized their full intent. This brief examination highlights key policy opportunities that the workgroup reviewed and discussed in order to leverage existing efforts that support the needs of LGBTQ2SIA+ youth, particularly those of color. It is not intended to be a comprehensive inventory of all the current policies that impact LGBTQ2SIA+ students.

The key takeaways from this policy review are:

• Policy Challenges #1: Implementation of current anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies on their own do not create safe and affirming school spaces for LGBTQ2SIA+ students.
• Policy Challenges #2: Oregon has set some of the foundation for inclusive curriculum and has opportunities to both expand existing efforts and integrate them into many statewide policy initiatives intended to close opportunity gaps.
• Policy Challenges #3: Prior state guidance to districts about making school facilities safe for transgender, non-binary, gender diverse, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming students may not be well known among educators.
  

Policy Challenge #1: Implementation of current anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies on their own do not create safe school spaces for LGBTQ2SIA+ students.

• Anti-Discrimination Laws: As referenced earlier, discrimination in education is prohibited for any protected class, which includes race, disability, sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender identity. This is true regardless of whether the discrimination was intended or unintended. Current law also states that a public school, public community college, or public university can have its funds withheld by the State of Oregon if the school is in violation of the anti-discrimination laws. This means that according to the law, schools can be sanctioned if they are discriminating in a way that impacts access to educational programs and activities. This might manifest as: disproportionate discipline with students of a protected class, disproportionate class enrollment (e.g. career technical education, talented and gifted, advanced coursework), failure to provide comparable access to clubs and facilities (e.g. GSAs, restrooms, locker rooms), restricted ability to participate in sports because of gender identity or expression, etc. There are several implementation challenges with this policy:
  1. Students often do not know they can report discrimination, and if so, how they can report. Even if they do know these things, they may not feel comfortable reporting this to the same school or district that they feel may have harmed them.
  2. Since many students and families may not even know if/how they can report alleged discrimination to the state, it is likely that the state does not have an accurate and up-to-date understanding of whether districts are in compliance with anti-discrimination laws. The number of complaints regarding discrimination is reported by districts to the federal government, and only accessible by the Oregon Department of Education two years later. The only other way that the Oregon Department of Education would ever learn about the discrimination complaints is if a student or family reached out to the Department directly.
  3. School or district staff may not recognize certain behavior, intended or unintended, is a violation of anti-discrimination law. According to Oregon Department of Education staff, in most reports from students or families received by the agency, the student/family says they reported the alleged discrimination to the school and allege that the school did not respond. The school/district often did not recognize the complaint, or else failed to recognize it as a complaint of discrimination. Failure to recognize discriminatory harassment often leads to inappropriate responses that fail to remedy violations of civil rights for LGBTQ2SIA+ students. This in turn contributes to day-to-day harm that interferes with student success.
  4. School/district personnel and students/families may not know what type of response to complaints of discrimination is required. When school and district personnel learn of potential discrimination, they must report it to designated personnel so that it can be addressed. The school will then need to act to support the person who experienced the discrimination. If an investigation reveals that discrimination or discriminatory harassment occurred, the school must take steps to eliminate the harassment and prevent it from recurring. However, many school and district personnel may not realize they have these obligations, and students and families may not realize what rights they have and what they should expect the school to do.
  5. Students and families who have a complaint must either exhaust all of the district complaint procedures, or else wait 90 days from the point in which the discrimination first occurred before the Oregon Department of Education can take any formal action. The intent with this policy is that the local district is provided with a chance to directly work with the family of the impacted student to address the situation. However, it can often mean that the negative impact the student faces is prolonged for over three months before the State can begin an investigation.
  6. When there is a State finding that discrimination may have occurred, a consistent follow-up is for the district to have additional training for staff and students. This raises questions about who provides, who funds the training, how frequent the trainings are, and for whom (e.g. teachers, administrators, substitutes, other school staff, students).
  7. Districts and families are often confused by overlapping legal processes required for discriminatory harassment. Student misconduct under anti-bullying policy may also trigger responsibilities under anti-discrimination laws. Schools and districts often fail to recognize both responsibilities, and that these responsibilities exist even if the student or family do not specifically identify the harassment as discrimination. The school/district personnel must be trained to recognize and respond appropriately to all legal requirements, and may be simultaneously limited by the capacity to respond to all these needs with limited resources.
  8. Oregon law prohibits retaliation against individuals who file a complaint regarding discrimination, but students, families, and school staff may still not feel adequately protected. Retaliatory acts may be hard to identify and the perceived risk of retaliation may limit the willingness for individuals to report alleged illegal conduct. According to ODE staff, some students and families report sensing hostility or being isolated following a complaint that becomes public, and subtle conduct may be hard to address.
• Anti-Bullying and Harassment Laws: Oregon is one of just 21 states that requires all school districts to have anti-bullying policies that explicitly prohibit bullying due to race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and many other protected classes. This requirement is a result of the Oregon Safe Schools Act, passed in 2009 (ORS 339.356). The law also requires districts to incorporate anti-bullying training (this includes online bullying known as “cyberbulling”) for students and school employees and encourages them to create task forces to implement anti-bullying initiatives. If policy alone were a tool to mitigate bullying, then we might expect student self-reports of bullying (on a national survey) to be lower than national average rates of student self-reports. Instead, as shown in Figure E, the rates are about the same according to student survey data collected nearly a decade after the anti-bullying law was created. In some cases, Oregon students self-report bullying at higher rates compared to the national average. For example, rates of physical harassment (pushed or shoved) and verbal harassment (threatened or subjected to name calling) based on gender expression are higher in Oregon compared to the national average.
  The law also requires districts to create process through which students can report harassment (including anonymously) and requires districts to specify in their policies how they will investigate these reports. The laws also require that students are not told about the consequences other students receive. This often leads to students feeling that nothing was done. Indeed, student comments in our engagement efforts revealed that students do not trust that these reports will be acted upon. In summary, despite this decade-old anti-bullying policy, the everyday experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in Oregon clearly reveal that this behavior is still a prominent part of their day-to-day school life. It is unclear where the implementation challenges lie. To date, no known Oregon studies have been done to comprehensively assess the following:
  1. Whether the anti-bullying policies each district has adopted actually meet the requirements of the law
  2. Whether districts have communicated their policies to their staff and students
  3. Whether school staff and students actually understand the communication from the district
  4. Whether trainings have been made available to school staff and students in accessible forms (e.g. language, location access)
     
  Without the answers to these and other questions pertaining to implementation, the root causes of why discrimination, bullying, and harassment are still such a prominent part of the LGBTQ2IA+ student experience remain unclear. The Advisory Group’s recommendations focus on implementation fidelity, including awareness raising, clarity and communication, while recognizing that more information is needed to understand the impact of anti-bullying policies on student experiences.

Policy Challenge #2: Oregon has set some of the foundation for inclusive curriculum, and has opportunities to expand existing efforts and integrate them into many statewide policy initiatives intended to close opportunity gaps.

As referenced in the youth engagement section of this plan, school curriculum that makes visible the intergenerational strengths and resilience of diverse individuals and communities is foundational to making students feel seen and connected to their education. Inclusive core curriculum is an important driver that values students as whole people with multiple intersecting identities, and sets all students up for success.

To provide context for this discussion, it is helpful first to make the distinction between standards and curriculum. Subject- and grade-specific standards are a set of expectations that provide guidance on the question “what do students need to know and be able to do by the end of a school year?” They are adopted by the State of Oregon’s State Board of Education. Local school districts (through their school boards) are charged with providing students with curriculum that incorporates the State standards. Curriculum includes lessons, activities, and assessments that teachers then use in their classes. For example, current Health Education Standards suggest that by the end of the 3rd grade, students should be able to define the term “sexual orientation.” It is up to local school districts to create or procure the curriculum to be able to meet that and other standards. Teachers then utilize that curriculum into their day-to-day lesson plans.

Intersections in core curriculum across race and sexual orientation and gender identity. The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) is in the process of developing inclusive social science standards. The statute creates statewide social science standards inclusive of “ethnic minorities” (this is a term used in statute) as follows: “Native American or Americans of African, Asian, Pacific Island, Chicano, Latino, people of Middle Eastern descent.” The statute also includes standards that include “social minorities” (also a term used in statute) as “women, people with disabilities, immigrants, refugees and individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.” A more recent law will require districts to adopt textbooks and instructional materials that are inclusive of these and other communities. Ethnic Studies was created in law in 2017, requiring ODE create an advisory group to develop statewide social science standards for kindergarten through grade 12. These standards are expected to be ready to share with districts in the 2021-22 school year. In the meantime, local school boards can choose to adopt their own inclusive curriculum. However, there are no or limited staff resources at ODE to support districts in developing local standards and adopting the associated instructional materials. Even when the ethnic studies standards are in place and instructional materials are adopted in 2026-27, it is likely that districts may be challenged to find or create appropriate curriculum to meet the standards.

There are other statewide education initiatives that aim to support school districts with identifying and implementing curriculum and pedagogy relevant to historically marginalized communities. These separate initiatives include the American Indian/Alaska Native Student Success Plan, the Black/African American Student Success Plan, the English Language Learner Strategic Plan, and the Latinx Student Success Plan. These plans have existed in the range of thirty years (American Indian/Alaska Native State Education Plan) to recently developed (Interim Latino/a/x Student Success Plan).

Tribal History/Shared History, created by law in 2017, is a unique state education policy in that the legislation required the Department of Education to create Native American curriculum for kindergarten through grade 12. This is unique because, in most other circumstances, curriculum is developed or obtained by districts. One of the many strengths of Tribal History/Shared History is that it does not rely on the capacity of each individual school district to create inclusive curriculum. In addition, the law requires ODE to fund educator professional development so that educators know how to use the curriculum as intended.

Each of these communities of color also have students who identify as LGBTQ2SIA+. Without systemic commitments and funding to create and implement inclusive and intersectional standards, and the curriculum and professional development for educators to go with the standards, students may continue to see parts of their identity absent from their schooling. There are opportunities for the Oregon to learn from each of the examples above and develop coordinated efforts to ensure that students see their racial/ethnic identities and their sexual orientation and gender identities represented in core curriculum.

Case study of implementation challenges of inclusive Health Education standards. The multi-stage process of creating inclusive standards at the state level and asking districts to source and adopt curriculum at the local level can cause several challenges that can limit how soon LGBTQ2SIA+ students can see themselves reflected in their curriculum. For example, Health Education Standards, adopted by the Oregon State Board of Education in 2016, requires districts to adopt a “curriculum-based process of teaching the emotional, physical, and social aspects of human sexuality and human relationships” in ways that is “complete, medically accurate, and age-appropriate.” The standards further require that gender identity and sexual orientation be addressed in sexual education in grades kindergarten through grade 12. These standards, while adopted at the state level, need to be translated into curriculum adopted by local school districts along with instructional materials. There are 35 pages of standards for Health Education for kindergarten through grade 12, and there is 0.5 full-time equivalent Oregon Department of Education employee charged with providing technical assistance and support to 197 districts throughout the state (plus charter schools and education service districts) that all need to find or create curriculum. In addition to the limited state-level capacity to support districts, the following is a sampling of some of the implementation challenges that prevent the intention of inclusive health standards from being fully realized:

• Lack of existing curricula that addresses the new inclusive health standards. Oregon is a leader among the country in how health and sexuality education are taught, so there are not currently national standards or curriculum from which to borrow. Schools therefore have to find their own way to meet the standards, which is especially hard for rural communities that have limited staff capacity to develop or find curriculum.
• Lack of teacher training to implement inclusive standards or curriculum. Given that education has not typically included the experiences of historically marginalized groups, many teachers around the state do not have the awareness, comfort, or ability to be able to teach to new standards that address LGBTQ2SIA+ students and students of color.
  

As a result of these and other issues, a majority of school districts do not in practice currently meet the 2016 Health Standards. Districts that do not meet these standards must submit a written plan of action for how they will work towards meeting the standards. But for districts who cannot meet the standards, most do not have the capacity to even create a plan of action. Thus the cycle remains locked in which Oregon has health education standards that require districts to recognize LGBTQ2SIA+ identities and the identities of diverse racial/ethnic groups, and yet there is little support for the State or for districts to actually ensure these are implemented, even with the best of intentions.

Policy Challenge #3: Prior state guidance to districts about making school facilities safe and affirming for gender diverse, transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming students may not be well known among educators.

In 2016, the Oregon Department of Education issued guidance to school districts regarding how they can create safe school environments for transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, or gender nonconforming students. The guidance encouraged or re-affirmed (note that these were not requirements) the following, among others:

• Re-affirmed the Oregon law that districts must provide free education to all students, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression
• Re-affirmed the federal law related to the privacy of student records
• Re-affirmed prior state policy that requires districts to provide age-appropriate sexuality education that recognizes LGBTQ+ identities in curriculum and materials
• Encouraged districts to engage students around their name or pronouns, noting that “transgender students often choose to change the name assigned to them at birth to a name that affirms their gender identity.”
• Encouraged districts to deviate from prior state policy to allow transgender students’ chosen name to be reflected in district records, with detailed guidance on how to do so without unintentionally “outing” the student
• Re-affirmed prior federal guidance that districts provide restroom accommodations to gender diverse students such as “unisex” (referenced earlier in this plan as “gender neutral”) restrooms and locker room facilities.
• Re-affirmed that students should be permitted to participate in the physical education, intramural sports, and interschool activities in accordance with the student’s gender identity.
  

Given the myriad comments from Oregon youth earlier in this plan and from student surveys collected after this guidance is issued, it is clear that guidance alone is not sufficient to support educators in supporting LGBTQ2SIA+ students.

Recommendations | Trust, Connection and Inclusion

The recommendations outlined in this section are based on the preceding documented experiences of LGBTQ2SIA+ students and their own requests for support; research from Oregon and national sources; Oregon’s prior policy work to support safe and inclusive spaces for all students; and the wisdom and experiences of the advisory group. Embedded in the recommendations is a recognition that LGBTQ2SIA+ students of color face unique and compounded challenges in their schools and communities as their resilience forces them to address bias, acts of erasure (i.e. through curriculum) based on their race/ethnic identity as well as their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Without an intentional focus on the ways in which race and ethnicity intersect with gender and sexuality, we run the risk of increased systematic harm to students.

These recommendations are offered with the understanding that LGBTQ2SIA+ youth are whole, valuable, worthy, resilient people for whom sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression is a portion of a more expansive identity. Our premise is that every student must have the opportunity to succeed with the support of a systematic and intentional re-imagining of education to make visible the strengths, excellence, and promise inherent within each of them. We recognize that our systems to date have fallen short of manifesting this vision particularly for students of color who are LGBTQSIA+, and we recognize an opportunity to act with urgency now.

The key problems addressed by the recommendations are:

• Individual bias and acts of discrimination
• Institutions that create barriers to learning and physical and emotional safety
• State systems that lack the resources to support learning and hold accountable harm to students and educators
  

Across all recommendations, the intention is the same -- to create environments where LGBTQ2SIA+ students have trusting relationships, feel connected to individuals and the community, and can be their full, authentic selves. Trust, connection and inclusion are necessary ingredients for students to succeed in reaching their full potential academically, as well as socially and emotionally.

These recommendations are also offered with the recognition that:

• Changing systems to be more inclusive of identities that have been marginalized in U.S. history and culture is ongoing work and requires ongoing, long-term commitment and resources. As a result, the successful implementation of these recommendations requires a standing statewide advisory group to support the Oregon Department of Education by providing regular feedback on strategies, reviewing implementation data, and revising the plan as we learn more about promising practices.
• b) The lived experiences of LGBTQ2SIA+ students must inform implementation of this plan at each juncture. While even the most well-intended adults have valuable insight and experience, the school environment that exists today is one that current students know best.
  

As with any policy initiative, it is possible for good intentions to cause harm. Trust, connection and inclusion are not just nice words, but they are the north star which must guide implementation of each and every recommendation in order to add up to success for LGBTQ2SIA+ students.

Summary of Recommendations | Three Interdependent Levels of Impact

Recommendation Domain #1: Individual Intentions and Impact

These recommendations are intended to directly address the ways in which individual educators, peers and families impact a student’s experience of school.

• Objective #1: Supportive Educators
  • Educators (including teachers, administrators, and classified staff) have the training, coaching, and ongoing support to build trusting, connected, and inclusive environments.
• Objective #2: Supportive Peers
  • Youth are supported to develop understanding of and respect for individual, family, and cultural differences including sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
• Objective #3: Supportive Families
  • Districts recognize that LGBTQ2SIA+ student success is impacted beyond the walls of the school and engage community-based organizations and families as full partners in supporting students.
    
    

Recommendation Domain #2: Institutional Policies and Facilities

These recommendations are focused on the spaces that serve students and address the institutional policies and decisions that can help make a space feel safe and inclusive.

• Objective #1: Safer Affirming Spaces (e.g. gender-neutral restrooms, affinity spaces, safe space posters, implementing Anti-Bullying Policies)
  • Youth feel safe, seen, and supported in school spaces.
• Objective #2: Inclusive Curriculum
  • Students receive LGBTQ2SIA+ inclusive, culturally sustaining, curriculum and pedagogy across grades and subjects.
    
    

Recommendation Domain #3: State Accountability and Support Systems

These recommendations address the ways in which state systems can play a role in both holding institutions accountable to serving all students and provide support and guidance to proactively reduce ignorance and increase student-centered capacity across the state.

• Objective #1: Opportunities for Students and Educators to Systematically Assess and Improve School Climate and Culture and Inform State and Local policy (e.g. School Climate Surveys, tracking reports of bullying, highlighting promising practices)
  • The current experiences of LGBTQ2SIA+ youth and educators are made more visible in order to inform policy and implementation of supports.
• Objective #2: ODE Capacity to Support Districts and Families (e.g. greater implementation support for the existing policies and new recommended ones)
  • ODE demonstrates leadership to districts, schools, and families by collecting and disseminating resources, providing guidance and coaching, addressing violations of policy in a timely manner, and proactively building districts’ capacity to create trusting, connected and inclusive environments.
• Objective #3: Cross-agency Collaboration
  • State education and health agencies work together to address issues that impact the experiences of LGBTQ2SIA+ youth.
    

Domain 1: Individual Intention & Impact

Domain 2: Institutional Policies & Facilities

[1] Washington State Governor's Office of the Education Ombuds, available at https://www.oeo.wa.gov/en.

Domain 3: State Accountability & Support Systems

[1] Washington State Governor's Office of the Education Ombuds, available at https://www.oeo.wa.gov/en.

Appendix A: Practice Guidance Regarding Trainings

Much of the discussion in the Advisory Group included how to define, schedule, and provide trainings and coaching to those who interact with LGBTQ2SIA+ students. As noted in the State Policy Context section of this Plan, some training is already required in order to prevent bullying, harassment, and discrimination. This suggests that no policy provided in this Plan is on its own enough to actually create safer and more welcoming spaces for students in school. In order to capture the discussion of the Advisory Group regarding trainings, we offer these suggestions as guidance to state and local administrators to inform the day-to-day development and implementation of trainings intended to support LGBTQ2SIA+ youth.

• Student Voice: The voices of the most impacted by education decisions, students, is critical to inform the development of trainings. Students engaged as part of the creation of this plan asked that they be included in the development and implementation of trainings for other students and for educators.
• Differentiated Training: Different positions, roles, and lived experience require different breadth and depth of training. All staff should get baseline annual training. Administrators and other district staff who have hiring authority should receive specific training in best practices to support equitable hiring (e.g. behavior-based interview questions and anti-bias practices). Districts are encouraged to ask their school staff what their needs are in supporting LGBT2SIA+ students, students of color, and students with disabilities and make a plan to co-develop and provide that support. Finally, coaching and mentoring are necessary ingredients to ensure that knowledge learned in trainings is consistently applied to support students each and every day. Implementation of this plan should include assessment of how and for whom ongoing coaching should be provided.

Appendix B: Resources & Promising Practices for Supporting LGBTQ2SIA+ Students

These resources were shared by Advisory Group members. Note: The content of each of these is not endorsed by the Oregon Department of Education, except for the content created by the agency.

For Students

• The Trevor Project: Has a 24 hour text, chat, and phone line for LGBTQ2SIA+ youth and their allies to receive support. These are staffed by a counselor. Additional online resources are available on Trevor Project’s website.
  

For Educators

• Welcomingschools.org: Created by the Human Rights Campaign, this is a resource for elementary school teachers.
• University of Oregon Teach Out: This program through the University of Oregon Education Studies Department helps prepare future teachers to meet the needs of LGBTQ youth.
• GLSEN: Ready Set Respect: Created by GLSEN, this is a toolkit for elementary school teachers.
• Safe Zone Project: This organization has a several curriculum resources for educators and has its own resource library to other materials, articles, and books.
  

For Families

• Fierce Families Network: This is a network of families convened by Basic Rights Oregon with a focus on transgender children.
• Family Acceptance Project: This is an initiative that is intended to support ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse families support LGBTQ children.
  

For Districts

• Supporting Gender Expansive Students: Guidance for Schools, Oregon Department of Education, January 2023
  
• Oregon Sex Education Standards FAQ: Created by the Oregon Department of Education as guidance to districts.
• Oregon School Activities Association’s Gender Identity Participation Policy Regarding Athletics and Programs: Created in partnership between the Oregon Department of Education and the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA), this excerpt details policies from the 2019-2020 OSAA Handbook.
• GLSEN Model District Policy on Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students: Created by GLSEN, this is a set of model policies that districts may use to create safer and more welcoming school environments for transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming students.
  

Research/Reports

• Supporting Safe and Healthy Schools: GLSEN published this 2019 report intended to support mental health professionals in working with LGBTQ students.
• Survey of the Needs of Transgender Youth in Oregon: Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) prepared this report in 2019.