Student Intervention

[The Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) organization at my high school, which meets twice per month, generated a list of concerns that they shared with school administration. The focus was specifically about gender identity, the lack of support from school staff, and the daily scrutiny they face as a result of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Through collaboration with my colleagues it was evident that there had been an increase in teacher and student referrals surrounding gender identity. The feedback from GSA clearly identified that as a school we are not meeting the needs of our LGBT students and those struggling with sexual orientation. Members of the GSA clearly feel that teachers ignore negative comments like “gay” and “faggot” when they hear them in class, that teachers may not clearly understand gender neutral language, and that our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) students do not feel safe and protected in school. Students needed support advocating for their right to use a restroom, correct pronoun, etc., requiring district, community, parent, and colleague

Acts of homophobia are an everyday occurrence in American schools. Sometimes acts of homophobia are very overt such as bullying or committing violence against a person you know or perceive to be a homosexual, but more often acts of homophobia are more subvert, comments, looks and body language that is exhibited around people believed to be homosexual. There are also times when homophobia maybe unintentional, such as assuming that all couples at a dance are going to be heterosexual and consciously or unconsciously allowing there to be a double standard on how same sex and hetero

Most LGBT youth become happy with who they are which gives them room to thrive during their adolescent years. Attending a school that has a safe and comfortable environment for every student is especially important. Positive environments can help all youth achieve good grades and maintain good mental and physical health. However, some youths are more likely than their straight peers to experience bad health and life outcomes. Experiences with violence, compared to other students, come easy to LGBT individuals that can cause increased risks for unfortunate circumstances.‘Violence’ includes behaviors such as teasing, harassment, and physical assault. It is important that students at risk have access to resources and support to deal with any questions or challenges they may have or face as they mature. Surveyed LGBT students reported 10% were threatened or injured, 34% were bullied, and 28% were bullied electronically.

The Bullying Policy has been introduced around the world which, according to the 2014 observations , rates of bullying vary across studies from 9% to 98%. An observation of 80 studies analyzing bullying involvement rates for both bullying others and being bullied for 12-18 year old students reported an estimate rate of 35% for traditional bullying involvement and 15% for cyberbullying involvement (Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra, & Runions, 2014). This means the Bullying Prevention Policy affects million of students nationwide due to the programs created. More specifically, females face a higher indication of bullying victimization than males do. To explain, high percentages of each gender are faced with the aggressive acts of violence, making it extremely hard to perform well in the school environment. Furthermore, as many as 93 percent of students hear derogatory words about sexual orientation at least once every day at school or in their community (violencepreventionworks). Negative name calling and harassment about sexual orientation can be disrespectful to all students. For an example, 3 out of 4 students who are bullied/harassed with such remarks are not identified as lesbian, gay,

GSA groups have been around since the 1980’s and according to the Gay-Straight Alliance Network there are currently over 4,000 school based groups throughout the United States (Currie, Mayberry, and Chenneville, 2012; Tommey, Ryan, Diaz, and Russell, 2011). GSA groups came out of the Gay Rights Movement during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Adolescents identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) or align within the context of this spectrum have been victims of bullying, discrimination, prejudice, persecution, and hate within the school system. For one decade, between 1999 and 2009, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in the United States asking students to describe their high school milieu. According to the findings, 61% of LGBT students feel unsafe, 72% report hearing degrading comments, 85% are verbally harassed, and 40% are physically harassed (Fetner, Elafros, Bortolin, and Drechsler, 2012). The statistics for minority high school students including Latinos and African Americans had slightly elevated rates in both verbal and physical harassment. It was not until the realization that LGBT adolescents, like other adolescents, spend the majority of their time within the confines of the American public education system and suffer, did acknowledgement of creating a safe space for LGBT students develop (Toomey et. al, 2011).

“Research suggests that those responsible for training teachers and educational psychologists may not recognize the issue of sexual orientation as being relevant to their work. (McIntyre, 2009) Proper training for these individuals could help provide a foundation of education for teachers to be able to recognize and handle situations that arise. If professional attitudes were altered to better accompany those views of LGBTQ students, then we may have more success in training these people. “Teachers interviewed in this study reported lack of knowledge and training in matters of sexuality and needed reassurance from both parents and employers that the content of taught courses was acceptable.” (McIntyre, 2009) Knowledge is an important thing and should not be limited to only students, but teachers as well. Giving these teachers the proper education about how to address and identify LGBTQ issues would help

A comprehensive anti-homophobia school policy that includes the needs of staff and students, commitment to staff development and curricula development, can assist principals, teachers, and students to challenge and disrupt homophobic beliefs and practices in their schools. Evidence into the implementation of current anti-homophobia school policies from Canada, Australia and USA shows that policy based protection makes a positive difference to LGBT students as it has a highly significant relationship with reduced likelihood of thinking about self-harm, actual self- harm, suicidal ideation and attempted suicide [34]–[36].

The common thought has been bullying is a normal reaction to school. Studies show that bullying is the result of underlying issues. Traditional bullying was a common thug trying to make a place for themselves, whereas now it has gone to new heights, it now includes physical trauma and even death. We find that bullying affects the bully as well as the victim. The victims tend to have more problems in school with attendance and achievements within the academic world. This is not just about the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, it involves all students that don’t fit societies idea of normal then the person gets bullied. The amount of attention given to this issue is a direct result of this escalation in events within the school system from grade schools to universities. The most pressing problem with getting the bullying policies changed is the conservative communities that school boards serve and convincing them that these policies need to be

Based off sheer size of my classes, prior to looking at the data, I determined that I wanted my student intervention to take place with a group in my sixth period B-day class. My sixth period is one of my largest (if not the largest) class that I have, and with that being said, many of the students are unable to get the individualized attention that they need. The students I targeted were specifically chosen because they are some of the lowest students in my class. The Intensive Reading course has twenty-eight students, on a good day, and every student struggles with the fundamentals of reading. A majority of the students are 10th graders and a few of the students are repeating either the grade level or just the class itself. In my specific student intervention group, I will have five students, four of which are classified as 10th grade and one of which is classified as 9th grade. Three of the students are African-American, one of the students is Caucasian, and one of the students is Multi-Racial. One of the students in the small group does have a 504 plan and another student has an IEP both of which request for accommodations such as extra time, copies of notes, peer assistance, and encouragement throughout all lessons. All of the students chosen are also suppose to work with a reading interventionist, but considering that is not always an option, my student intervention plan is to act in substitution of, and in addition to, the help they are already receiving.

inspired by this and launched a multipronged education campaign to fight the use of anti-gay language and bullying. In the cases previously discussed there has been a constant repetition of how the principals react to the bullying. No matter how many complaints the mothers of these children filed, no solution even resulted. The schools never made an effort to do anything to stop this. The fact that this can continue on is unacceptable considering that it is the schools’ responsibility to care for all their students.

I think Response to intervention and instruction is necessary because the sooner we can identify and treat difficulties the better outcome for the students. I agree with Megan Zerega RTI is proactive which is different than what America is used too. The children are identified in the general education classrooms and receive tiered services inside the classroom depending on the child’s needs. I like how Cali mention children with all behavioral and learning disabilities. RTI coincides with the six principles of IDEIA 2014; least restrictive environment, free and appropriate public education, procedural due process, parent and student participation, nondiscriminatory evaluation

The purpose study was designed to examine the achievement of first-generation immigrant children in high-poverty elementary schools who received a school-based intervention. The intervention was designed to help schools to identify developmental strength and barriers to learning. In addition, it connected children to community and school supports to align with their strengths and needs. The participants were 667 first-generation immigrant children attending 8 high-poverty urban elementary schools. The study used a quasi-experimental design that manipulated school-level changes (presence or absence of the intervention) and had two hypotheses. First, immigrant children who attended schools when the intervention years would have higher achievement

A limitation to this study was that it had the inability to comment on the cultural and contextual differences that drive these experiences regarding to victimization. Another limitation the authors pointed out is that this study on paid attention to the sexual identity of participants.. Sexual behavior and attraction are also important to consider. Another limitation of this study is that the results may not pertain to all LGBTQ students in other

These threats should not be taken lightly, “Nearly a fifth of students are physically assaulted because of their sexual orientation” (PflagNyc). Creating safe places and educating these people on what homosexuality is, and having them realize there is nothing wrong with it; before long we can help these children who are being harassed daily. Schools, friends, and family can all play a role in making the LGBT community feel safe and welcome. At school, having a safe environment where the kids feel safe and have policies against treating the kids differently by cause of their sexual preference. Unfortunately, harassment based on sexual preference, we do not have Federal laws protecting them.

most likely kids to be bullied are gay or are perceived to be gay, and in a nationally representative sample 1/3 of 3,500 students were bullied due to sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation. Thereby, illustrating that even though times are changing, there are still several issues concerning sexual orientation. Though the LGBT community has made headway, especially with the Obergefell v. Hodges case decision, they have had to deal with a large amount disparity, much more than there heterosexual counterparts’ relative to issues of love, marriage, intimacy, and relations. Ultimately, there are still issues facing the LGBT community, but with the ruling in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, there is evidence of those issues, as they pertain to equality, being addressed.