He came to Fallbrook High School as a freshman. Small for his age, his mother described him as a “happy, kind of goofy kid,” gregarious and friendly with others.

However, in the process of making new friends his first week (September of 2000), Diane Strain’s son — now a senior at another school who wished to remain anonymous — began to hear the words ‘fag,’ ‘queer’ and ‘homo’ hurled in his direction.

Strain said the slurs soon became a constant chant, led by a boy with a known criminal record in the district — the one with a ‘show me your tits’ bumper sticker on his bike and drug dealer parents.

Strain’s son told his teacher about the harassment, as instructed in his student handbook. “The teacher just said, ‘Go back to your chair,’” Strain recalled. “He kind of separated them a little, but did nothing.”

Walking to the bus, Strain’s son was jumped by the same group of kids, the school’s trademark clock tower ticking overhead. With broken glasses and a black eye, he reported the incident to a security guard at the school. “Because no one had witnessed it, the school decided both kids should be suspended.”

The bullying and physical harassment went on for months. “I wrote a letter to the administrators saying, ‘I will not have this bully ruining my child’s high school experience,’” Strain said. Being placed in the same gym class as his tormentor, her son tried to remedy the situation and make friends with the bully, using self-effacing humor and making jokes about his own pummeling. However, it wasn’t long before he was being nudged and shoved in the hall by the boy, his CD player smashed to pieces as he walked to class.

“He would say, ‘If you tell, it’ll be worse,’” Strain said. “We would report and [the school] would say, ‘Well, was there a witness?’”

Strain finally pulled her son out of Fallbrook High in the spring of 2001, after he was stabbed in the back with a pencil while walking down the hall. “Nobody saw it happen, even though he had a hole in his back and was bleeding.”

After having his wound cleaned by the school nurse, Strain’s son returned to gym class where his tormentor reportedly told him, “Sorry man, I just couldn’t help myself — you’re the biggest fag in school.”

It was during this same time, on March 5, 2001, that 15-year-old Santana High School student Charles “Andy” Williams — taunted and bullied mercilessly while being called a ‘fag’ and having ‘Andy is gay’ carved into a picnic bench — walked onto campus with a .22 caliber handgun, killing two students and wounding 13 others.

“[My son] kind of looks like that kid and he was the exact same age,” Strain recalled. “I saw my gentle, fun-loving boy come home plotting revenge, seething at home about how he could get back at them; he felt so powerless. I truly believe that [my son] could have been that kid at Santee. I could see how it could have happened.”

Fortunately, Strain had the means to remove her son from Fallbrook and place him in a private school.

“My older son (now a senior in college) graduated the year before…. He always used to say, ‘We’ll never be like Columbine — we’re more of a rifle shooting from the clock tower school.’”

Under state Senator Sheila Kuehl’s Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 (AB 537), students in California are — ideally — protected by law from harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The language of the legislation notes that “suicide is the third leading cause of death for youths 15 through 24,” and that “the fastest growing violent crime in California is hate crime.”

It would seem that the climate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) students in the state would have improved since the law was enacted. However, looking at a significant sampling of high schools in San Diego County, it appears that while some schools have taken measures to assure a safe learning environment for GLBT students and those perceived as such, others have done only the bare minimum, continuing to pander to the conservative and religious views of parents in their district.

Driving into the rural, heavily wooded community of Fallbrook, the smell of pine is thick in the air. Antique shops begin to appear on the horizon and the din of the city becomes a distant memory — this is what some would refer to as “God’s country.”

Depending upon whose god you’re referring to, the title fits. Fallbrook is home to the “Wings of Eagles” Christian motorcycle club and was, at last count, home to an annual haunted house that scares children with photos of late term abortions and AIDS patients.

Fallbrook High School has close to 3,000 students, roughly 56 percent of which are white, 34 percent Latino, and two percent African-American and other minorities. On campus, student clubs like the Warriors for Christ and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes can be seen praying around the flagpole at lunchtime or thumbing through their Bibles during study hall. The school does not have a gay-straight alliance (GSA) for GLBT students and their supporters.

But has the climate at Fallbrook High changed any over the past few years since Strain’s son was tormented and a rash of school shootings plagued both county and country? Tad Jordan LeGrand, a gay man currently on administrative leave from his job teaching ninth grade math at Fallbrook, would argue that it hasn’t.

“In the three years that I’ve been there, I’ve had five cases of [anti-gay] sexual harassment,” LeGrand said. “In one case I had a female student pointing to my crotch during class and making comments; another student called me a ‘fucking faggot.’”

LeGrand’s beef isn’t so much that the incidents occurred in the first place as it is the blatant lack of action he said administrators have taken in response to his complaints.

At press time, LeGrand was still on leave, pending the outcome of an investigation into his case. In a letter to Fallbrook Union High School District (FUHSD) Superintendent Thomas Anthony, LeGrand said he felt his place of employment constituted a “hostile work environment and that FUHSD and Fallbrook High School have taken insufficient steps to insure students are aware of sexual harassment issues, or to properly notify a person complaining of sexual harassment of that person’s rights.”

As a teacher, LeGrand said the bulk of anti-gay sentiment he has witnessed has been between students. “You know, ‘gay,’ ‘faggot,’ name-calling of an anti-gay nature. It varies in cruelty and intensity…. Sometimes you can’t even pinpoint the person who said something or did something, because it’s a group environment. So you’re kind of caught, because you can’t do anything if you don’t know who the person is.”

Speaking with the Gay and Lesbian Times, another teacher at Fallbrook High, Gwendolyn Wiggins (not her real name), said she has witnessed the same pervasive, anti-gay atmosphere from the top down. Though Wiggins did not know LeGrand personally, the climate he spoke of at a recent school board meeting was all too familiar.

“Considering the environment, it doesn’t surprise me that he wasn’t given any support in his complaints,” she said. “I heard a coach say to another student, ‘Don’t throw that like a faggot’ and I said to the coach, ‘You can’t say that,’ and he said, ‘I can’t?’”

Wiggins witnessed a similar incident when a teacher was on campus as part of an arts program. When the visiting teacher asked for the key to the faculty restroom, he was reportedly told by another teacher, “‘I’m not having a faggot use my restroom.’

“The teacher (who made the comment) later received an award,” said Wiggins. “He wasn’t put on home assignment, like Tad.”

Asked about the prospects for a gay-straight alliance at Fallbrook, LeGrand said he feels it would be next to impossible. “The moment you imply sexual orientation, immediately you’re shot down by parents and students, because it’s so pro-Christian. Even the mention of that is offensive to them. Talking to parents or in meetings with other teachers, I’ve literally heard gasps at the term lesbian or gay.”

Fran White, president of the FUHSD board, said she was not aware of any requests by students to form a GSA. Asked if the board would be amiable to the formation of such a club, White was tentative in her response. “I can’t say that as an individual — I’m one of five…. It just depends on if they come to the board and how they present it. I really don’t know much about it. I would have to do research.”

Asked if she personally feels a GSA would be good for students and the environment at Fallbrook, White said, “No, I would not…. I would not bring it up; I would not promote it…. Personally, I don’t think that kids would want to come out at that age. I mean, it’s a sensitive subject and a very sensitive age.”

Wiggins said she thinks a GSA would improve morale and boost tolerance levels. With a little luck, she said she hopes to see one at Fallbrook in the near future.

“I’m sure they would be horrified, some people, but I don’t know if the administration would have the guts to shoot it down if kids asked for it,” she said. “Actually, a student in the class next door to me recently had a picture and said, ‘This is a picture of my boyfriend’ in the middle of class. I thought, ‘How brave,’ because I know how they tease one another…. He was saying, ‘I wish we had a club on campus,’ so maybe it will happen.” Wiggins said she plans to approach the student and offer him the encouragement to form a GSA if he’s still interested.

Noting the city of Fallbrook’s reputation (deserved or not) as a hotbed of racist activity — largely due to the city’s association with resident White Supremacist, Tom Metzger — LeGrand said the school was decidedly more proactive in combating racist attitudes. In regard to concerns about anti-gay harassment, LeGrand said, “Some teachers are very concerned, others just want us to shut up. They don’t want the bad exposure for the community.”

Responding to questions about the environment at Fallbrook, Superintendent Thomas Anthony and Director of Student Services Peter Fellios met with the Times, though they would not consent to a tape-recorded interview. Anthony and Fellios referred all questions about LeGrand to FUHSD’s attorney, Dan Shinoff, who frequently represents San Diego County school interests (Shinoff represented Granite Hills High in El Cajon when a student

claimed the district’s negligence led to the injuries he sustained in a 2001 school shooting). Repeated phone calls to Shinoff by the Times went unanswered.

Asked specifically about anti-gay incidents at Fallbrook High, both Anthony and Fellios said they were not aware of any, other than a male student who wore makeup to school last year and was shouted at by students (both declined to characterize the comments as taunting or harassment, though Fellios said he thought the student had gender identity issues). Anthony said students brought the occurrence to the administration’s notice and it was dealt with that day. Neither Anthony nor Fellios — both of whom were employed by Fallbrook at the time — mentioned the alleged harassment against Strain’s son, though Anthony later phoned to respond, “That student left our district in 2001 and we have no record of anything that you’re talking about.”

Anthony and Fellios supplied the Times with a copy of Fallbrook’s student handbook. Though the book contains reference to sexual harassment and punishments dolled out for offenses ranging from dealing Soma to possessing handguns, the term sexual orientation is not specifically mentioned.

Fellios noted a voluntary, three-day tolerance seminar conducted at Fallbrook High called “Breaking Down the Walls” and its $8,000 price tag. Asked if the program included references to sexual orientation, Fellios said, “I believe it does” (both LeGrand and Wiggins were doubtful on

this point). Fellios and Anthony also noted a presentation for faculty and staff by Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Regional Director Morris Casuto before the beginning of the school year.

Asked if he feels rural communities like Fallbrook tend to harbor more intolerant attitudes in general, Casuto said, “Communities that find themselves pretty homogenous don’t think of issues of diversity very often, because they don’t see them. There’s an old line in the musical South Pacific, ‘You have to be carefully taught to hate.’ That’s only one side of an algebraic equation. The reality is, you’ve got to be carefully taught to get along with different people as well.”

Casuto cautioned against stereotyping an entire community in the same manner in which other groups and communities have been stereotyped. “Fallbrook as a community has an undeserved aura, because it’s the home of Tom Metzger,” Casuto said. “People still call me, telling me, ‘I’m Jewish and I’m going to be moving to Fallbrook. Is that a dangerous community?’

“We forget that differences are not always attractive to people,” Casuto continued. “The presumption that all you have to do is say that differences are positive and we should accept them flies in the face of human nature…. Show me a community that doesn’t have anti-Semites or racists or homophobic people. Are we prepared to stereotype an entire complicated community on the basis of Tom Metzger? He would feel very proud of that.”

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one administrator in a district doing decidedly better on GLBT issues said she could empathize with the conundrum schools in conservative districts face. “Our teachers and staff have the protection to be as inclusive as they can be,” she said, “but I almost hate to talk to you about it too much, because if you bring too much attention to it, you get the nuts and the whacks coming in that can really set you back a long ways…. That sort of positive publicity, in fact, could set us back on some of the work we’re doing.”

Two years after the fatal shooting that shocked a nation and left two students dead, Santana High School still does not have a gay-straight alliance. Principal Gary Schwartzwald, who in June replaced Karen Kegischer — who was principal at the time of the 2001 shooting — did not respond to phone calls asking what the school is doing to prevent anti-gay harassment and bullying on campus. A secretary for Schwartzwald referred the Times to the Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD) board.

Jeremy Kraut-Ordover, chair of the San Diego chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), said GLSEN hadn’t received any calls about anti-gay harassment at Santana recently, though he said his sense was that the school had merely done some “surface level work to appease the media and more liberal parents,” which he feels is inconsistent with the spirit of AB 537.

The GUHSD first wound up on the intolerance map in 1999, when its board of trustees refused to add gay and lesbian students to the list of those protected from harassment in the district. After a heated public debate and a campaign to recall then board president Ted Crooks for supporting the protections and his alleged “homosexual agenda,” the recall failed and the protections were added.

Last year, the GUHSD board moved to have references to sexual orientation and testimony from an openly gay police officer removed from an ADL tolerance video shown at Grossmont High School.

“We’re not spending a lot of effort in Grossmont right now,” Kraut-Ordover said. “That’s a battle that I don’t have the manpower to win. That district is so radical right now that they’re not going to hear anything from us…. They’re really invested in being Alabama in 1960 and I don’t know that we’re going to be the ones to stop them from doing that.”

In regard to her vocal opposition to adding sexual orientation to the school’s anti-harassment policy in 1999, Priscilla Schreiber, vice-president of the GUHSD board, hasn’t progressed much. “I don’t believe in giving special rights to any special group,” she said. “I think that under the Constitution we’re all equally protected and I stand on that.”

Asked about the anti-gay taunting that contributed to the climate in which a student opened fire at Santana High two years ago, Schreiber maintained, “That had nothing to do with it…. Certainly I’m not naïve to the fact that people antagonize each other… I just saw [on TV] where a student was bullied and raped because she was obese. I mean, there’s just a lot of issues that our teens struggle with.”

In regard to the ADL tolerance film and the excising of its gay content, Schreiber said, “I have a problem with the film. I have a problem with indoctrination that homosexuality is an equal lifestyle to a heterosexual lifestyle…. I don’t think it should be discussed in schools or in academia.

“You know what, my sister’s a lesbian and her partner’s a lesbian,” Schreiber continued. “They have two children that they brought into this world and I love them very much. Yes, I know lots of lesbians; I know lots of homosexuals. I’m very close to the situation…. I don’t know that [my sister] can change tomorrow … but I know a lot of people have come out of the lifestyle.”

Though Schreiber said she feels anti-gay bias and harassment should be dealt with as it arises, to specifically mention it beforehand in a proactive manner, she feels, is akin to “indoctrination.”

“You guys want to tell our students, ‘Yes, it’s okay to be homosexual — it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.’ I would want to be that small little voice that says, ‘Let’s really look at this. Is it okay?’ Why would we want our kids to enter a destructive lifestyle? Are you going to be with them on the other end when they contract AIDS? If I come on campus and say, ‘No, I think there’s a better way for you,’ I’m castigated as a homophobe. I want the same rights as you to be able to say what I believe — and I don’t believe to live a homosexual lifestyle is moral, whether you’re in a monogamous relationship or not.”

Kraut-Ordover characterized Grossmont’s former board president Granger Ward as a champion of GLBT rights only when it was convenient. Of current board president Terry Ryan, who took over from Ward in April, he said, “He’s more of a friend to the movement than Granger was. He had a real moral struggle with taking that job….”

Speaking with the Times, Ryan said his priority was with students, and not the leanings of the board. “I’ve been very, very clear with the board that I expect them to obey the law and that the school belongs to the students,” Ryan said. “It’s not a political playground for adults. Their individual political and religious ideology is just that…. If students have clubs, if they have certain feelings or thoughts, they have the freedom to express that without interference from adults…. It’s their schools and they have certain freedom of expression and rights and it’s our duty and our obligation to protect that freedom and their rights…. I’m going to be very persistent that [the board] understand that anything else leads them right down the same path where they’ve been — and that’s into conflict and turmoil.

“I’m aware that [anti-gay] behaviors in fact exist in our district,” Ryan added. “We have absolutely no tolerance for that kind of behavior and will react very strongly to anything like that…. I’m not going to tell you too much about my personal life, but I’m very aware of that from a very personal point of view in the home that I grew [up] in.”

Since his arrival this year, Ryan said no incidences of anti-gay harassment have been reported to him, and said the tolerance film cuts were made before he joined the board. “It’s important to me that we [stress] that you don’t discriminate against people with a different sexual orientation. I think that’s important to be mentioned along with anything else.”

Though it’s not a high school in the GUHSD, upon graduation many students at Joan McQueen Middle School in Alpine transfer to a high school in Grossmont. GLSEN was recently contacted by attorneys for an eighth grade student at Joan McQueen who had been subject to anti-gay physical and verbal abuse at the school. According to the student and his parents, the district turned a blind eye to the abuse until legal action was taken.

Andrea Kimball, an attorney with Luce Forward, is currently representing the Alpine student. “Although we’ve not filed litigation against the district, we are working very diligently with the district to convince them that they need to change their polices with regard to harassment of students and enforce those policies so that they comply with the law,” Kimball said. “We’re hoping that we can work together pre-litigation, but if it comes to the need to litigate, we’ll do that…. We want to effect a cultural change, not just for my client, but for the other students. That’ll only happen through education.”

“The attorneys that [the boy] hired actually knew somebody that offered to send him to private school with no cost to him,” said Kraut-Ordover. “He’s a brave little kid; he will not leave his school. He said, ‘I’m not going to be chased away.’

“He’s got the support of his family too, which is just key,” Kraut-Ordover added. “His stepmother and his father have been incredibly supportive.”

Though Joan McQueen Principal Katy Woodward did not return phone calls from the Times, her secretary confirmed that the school was in discussion with the San Diego Regional Hate Crimes Coalition.

“If the hate crimes coalition contacts you, people listen,” Kimball said. “Its like the Sheriff and the FBI and representatives from all these [law enforcement agencies] and they have access to community organizations who can help you with training and identify the problem.”

In its fourth year, the GSA at Granite Hills High School, which resides in the Grossmont district, typically has between 15-20 students. According to Principal Georgette Torres, the school seems to be doing somewhat better. “When we first started the gay-straight alliance — because it was advertised, feel free to come, you don’t have to be gay, we want you to participate — we had a lot of knuckleheads showing up that were disruptive to the meeting.”

In the long run, Torres said she feels the club has “made a difference for the students who are in the group and those who are promoting tolerance of all people on our campus.”

Asked about incidences of harassment, Torres said, “I’m sure there are individual cases we have dealt with. We deal with kids on referrals calling people ‘homo’ or ‘fag’ or that kind of thing all the time … and then we’ve dealt with that.”

Though the GUHSD has its share of unsavory stories, GLSEN did note one stand-alone example of progress. “Helix High School is a school that’s incredibly positive,” Kraut-Ordover said. “It sits in the middle of Grossmont, but it can’t be touched by Grossmont because it’s a charter school. Helix has the number one GSA in the county.”

Andrea Fuller, a GLSEN board member and the chapter’s youth affairs coordinator, agreed with Kraut-Ordover’s assessment of Helix, though she noted there were definite problems at San Pasqual High School in Escondido. “They deal with mostly foster kids, so that brings on its own set of problems,” said Fuller. “They’re not necessarily up to speed in dealing with the whole tolerance for everybody. Their principal is not necessarily amenable or too awfully supportive in keeping their LGBT students safe. We’ve had a couple of complaints from one of the students up there who says she’s gotten slurs in the hall on a daily basis. She’s trying to start a GSA and they’re giving her a hard time about it, but we’re working through it.”

Scott Gross, a GLSEN board member and assistant director of education for the Anti-Defamation League, noted that the ADL’s demand for in-school trainings in San Diego County has decreased by about 50 percent.

“We’ve had an increasingly more difficult time getting into schools,” said Gross. “It’s not necessarily related to gay and lesbian issues; it has to do with the No Child Left Behind Act and the standardized test reform movement. Those two things have changed the climate of schools to really focus on measuring a school’s success…. All of a sudden schools don’t necessarily have the time for anti-bias training like ours…. We’re sending our students there to learn a prescribed set of information and then as soon as we can test them on it and they can regurgitate it; we’re deeming that a success. Unfortunately, kids aren’t learning to think for themselves or how to get along with each other — two skills that they need to operate in the world.”

AJ Davis-DeFeo, who heads The Center’s public policy department, said the bulk of the calls The Center receives about harassment in schools tend to come from North and East County. “With youth it fluctuates quite a bit, but some of the students I talk to have reported like 30 incidents, just within the last week,” said Davis-DeFeo. “I would say, [we get] probably about four to five calls a week that have something to do with discrimination, harassment, a hate incident or hate crime on campus. And it’s actually happening more than that, it’s just that they’re not sure where to go or they’re not reporting it.

“It is actually a misdemeanor for a school employee, like an administrator or a teacher, not to report a hate crime that gets reported to them on campus,” Davis-DeFeo noted. “So all those times you hear, ‘That’s so gay,’ and ‘She’s such a dyke’ and nobody does anything about it, that’s actually against the law.”

Though it hasn’t always been the most hospitable climate — particularly for gay and lesbian teachers — Rancho Bernardo High School has shown progress over the years. According to Lori Brickley, an award-winning biology teacher at Rancho Bernardo who came out to her school during a tolerance assembly, the school has a new principal, Jeffrey King, and things are looking up.

Brickley recently ended her four-year run as faculty advisor to Rancho Bernardo’s GSA. “When I said I’m looking for someone to advise this club, four people stepped forward and said, ‘I want to do it,’” Brickley noted. “Whenever there was anything that went on at Rancho Bernardo High School, the right-wing parents would start on the whole ‘homosexual agenda’ and then my name would get mentioned. So the principal called me in and asked me why I stepped down…. I said I was going to take a class and I needed my lunchtime to get organized. He breathed a big sigh of relief and he said, ‘Good, because I was afraid that the fundamentalist parent groups drove you out…. I think this gay-straight alliance could really lead the way to peace and acceptance on this campus. I think it’s the most important club we have.’ I was really happy to hear that from him.”

Brickley said the overall climate has improved as well. Though there are several gay male teachers on campus, she said the environment is generally more hospitable towards female than male students.

“Every year we put up [GSA] posters and every year they last about 15 minutes before somebody rips them down,” said Brickley. “This year they put up posters and I walked the halls and they were still up at break, they were still up at lunch and they were still up the next day, so the climate is definitely changing…. I haven’t had any problems in a couple of years, actually. Though there are conservative parents at Rancho Bernardo, Brickley said the difference in how it affects the climate on campus is in how the administration handles the situation.

“Our administration this year is not taking it,” she said. “Like, ‘Yes, okay, thank you for your concern and goodbye.’”

According to Fuller and Kraut-Ordover, GLSEN is seeing the most hospitable climate for GLBT students on campuses in the central and southern region of San Diego County. “Sweetwater’s a great district for gay kids, which is interesting if you take a look at the sociological side of it,” Kraut-Ordover said. “It’s a heavily immigrant, low education demographic…. Part of it is the coming of age of the movement that we’re starting to see. Other movements are recognizing that gay rights is the next huge civil rights movement and it’s beginning to be more of a given that gay rights will become part of the agenda.”

Among schools in the Sweetwater district, Kraut-Ordover noted Chula Vista High School as being strong in terms of GLBT acceptance, with many visibly out GLBT students thriving in its School of Creative and Performing Arts.

Lillian Leopold, director of grants and communications for Sweetwater Union High School District, said there are currently GSAs at Chula Vista, Mar Vista and Hilltop high schools, with one in the process of resurrection at Bonita Vista High.

Michelle Fisher, a student at Hilltop High in Chula Vista, is president of her school’s GSA. Though she said there weren’t many students involved with the club last year, they already have about 20 members this semester. She called the climate at Hilltop more “outgoing” this year. “Last year we had a few people that came into the drama room where we hold our meetings that would yell obscene (anti-gay) things…. This year not too many people really care about your status — if you’re lesbian, if you’re gay.”

She said the club has a few straight students helping them out. “They’re kind of somewhat against gay people at times, but they’re helping me out right now and I think it’s kind of nice for them to do that.”

Kraut-Ordover also had high praise for the San Dieguito Union High School District, which includes roughly 11,000 students in grades 7-12, including La Costa Canyon and Torrey Pines high schools.

“It’s not so much the anti-policy as it is the inclusive indoctrination that we do,” said San Dieguito Superintendent Penny Cooper-Francisco. “We’ve been very fortunate because, for the most part, our community is enlightened and fairly liberal and has been very accepting of our taking a more liberal position…. Acceptance and nondiscrimination is just something that is deeply valued.”

Cooper-Francisco noted a district-wide “welcome back” program for staff and teachers called “Equality and Excellence” conducted at the beginning of the school year. “We had panels of teachers and students who talked about dealing with their own sexual orientation and the pain and the challenges they faced in public schools…. Every school took that theme and then somehow embraced it at their school site — how you become a more inclusive, tolerant, accepting, nurturing environment. There are times we do it very well and there are times when we just plain flounder…. Although we attempt to create that environment of inclusion, I’m sure you could hear the painful stories of being singled out and ridiculed, just as you would in any other school environment. But there are programs where we truly try to combat that.”

Other schools GLSEN noted as being hospitable to GLBT students include La Jolla Country Day, Scripps Ranch and Francis Parker in Linda Vista.

“The whole issue of diversity, sort of in a global sense, is set out in our strategic plan,” said Cathy Morrison, director of communications for Francis Parker High School. “Our policies are very clear that we prohibit discrimination of any kind, including … sexual orientation…. We’re very determined that we wouldn’t want any of our Parker community to be suffering in silence.”

For the past few years, Francis Parker has had the largest school contingent in AIDS Walk (other high schools participating include La Costa Canyon, La Jolla Country Day, Poway, Rancho Bernardo, and Santana).

The GSA at Poway High currently has about 30 members who meet on a weekly basis. “It kind of comes and goes,” said Traci Barker-Ball, faculty advisor for the club. “I know a couple people that are completely out and say they never get any comments. I know some other people who say they hear it every day….

“The Day of Silence is very controversial and so obviously a lot of participants get harassed, both gay and straight,” Barker-Ball continued. “The first year we did it we spent probably at least a week with complaints where parents called in…. The following year we did some publicity ahead of time to forewarn parents [but] … we still got a lot of complaints because they wanted to prevent us from doing it…. This past year, we had very few phone calls….

“It’s been tough on our principal, because he is a conservative man and he lives in the community and has conservative friends, but he knows it’s the right thing to do.” Barker-Ball added. “By his own admission, he’s even lost some friends over the Day of Silence.”

Overall, Barker-Ball said the GSA has helped boost acceptance levels at Poway High. “I can remember one time when [the GSA] met at lunch and somebody had put a big sign on the door that said, ‘Fags come here,’ that kind of thing…. The word got out real quick that it’s not okay…. You can call somebody stupid, but if you call them a queer, you’re likely to get suspended.”