Student, Family, and Community Support  Department 

San Francisco Unified School District 

Actors from New Conservatory Theatre Center perform a scene onstage.

Our LGBTQ liaisons will be busy in April working with their schools on Gay Pride Month activities. Take a look:

Wallenberg High School

• Take ninth graders on a field trip to watch "The Other Side of the Closet" a play held at the New Conservatory Theatre Center  
• Set up a Marriage Booth at lunchtime
• Observe Day of Silence
• Implement Pink Tsunami Day
• Listen to an LGBTQ panel in the auditorium
• Make Internet/Technology Violence classroom presentations
• Offer Healthtopia, including the climbing wall and healthy food tastings

Roosevelt Middle School

• Hold a GSA pizza competition-whichever GSA meeting has more attendees (4th period or 5th period) will get a pizza party at the meeting in April
• Encourage students to attend a meeting discussing ways to promote and display respect for the LBGTQ community
• Prepare for the Day of Silence

Burton High School

• Celebrate National Day of Silence. They will pass out placards, stickers, and tape for students who want to participate. On the placards there is a place for teachers to sign off showing that students participated-some teachers offer credit for being silent all day. They call it the Day of Silence Challenge.
• Hold a "Breaking the Silence Party." They've done this for the past two years.
• Offer curriculum that can be taught silently and learned silently. Last year in every class all students in honor of National Day of Silence, never said a word, with the exception of a few.

Francisco Middle School

• Organize Day of Silence activities. Nearly half the school has voluntarily signed up to participate. Students were involved in every aspect of planning the event ranging from poster making, designing fliers, canvassing the yard, leading lunch activities, and labeling the no speaking stickers with student names.

San Francisco Community School

• Make "Gay Hero" posters of historical and contemporary leaders, performers, and thinkers from the LGBTQ community to post in the halls
• Take sixth, seventh and eighth graders on a field trip to watch "The Other Side of the Closet"      

Downtown High School

• Host Pride Week celebration sponsored by GSA. They will put on a Pride Festival which will consist of a Pride Performance and Pride Fair. The Pride Performance will be an all-school assembly that will include: queer artists, including a transgender blues musician; spoken word artists from Youth Speaks and the community; a gay stand-up comic; a student musician; and a drag performance to a Beyonce song put on by the school staff. The Pride Fair will be held at lunch and will feature booths with games provided by CBOs; a Marriage Equality Booth; and a bake sale put on by the GSA and the YOWs. They will also hold Day of Silence and Wear Pink for Pride on Friday.

Ida B. Wells High School

• Display "Famous LGBTQ People" bulletin board
• Present facts and quotes about LGBTQ people display
• Watch "Other Side of the Closet" educational play
• Show LGBTQ film festival

Download slides (pdf)

In today's celebrity-based culture, our students recognize entertainment industry and sports stars with ease. Why not use these celebrities as a teaching tool? Thanks to Holly and the GSA at Ida B. Wells High School who created a slide show that features some famous LGBTQ persons. Each slide shows a picture of the LGBTQ person and a short description.

Ways to consider using this activity:

• Print the pages that would be of interest to your school site and use them in a bulletin board display for Gay Pride Month
• View the slide show and discuss the persons with the entire class
• Print the pages you'd like to focus
• Ask students to sit in small groups
• Distribute several pages to students in these groups
• Allow students to report facts they've discovered

Ilsa and Kevin discuss training ideas.

Support Services for LGBTQ Youth, featuring Kevin and Ilsa, facilitated two successful professional development trainings this spring semester, focusing on working with and keeping our transgender students safe and in school. To make both of these trainings pertinent for SFUSD staff, we collaborated with two agencies to assist us.

• The first training featured Joel Baum of Gender Spectrum (see our resource page for further information about Gender Spectrum). Joel presented information to challenge our assumptions about what gender is, and how we respond to it. In addition, he offered concrete suggestions on implementing strategies to assist SFUSD transgender students and families.

• The second training featured presenters from the American Counseling Association (ACA). Theodore Burns. Ph.D. introduced the ACA Transgender Counseling Competencies to assist with counseling gender diverse and transgender students. We were able to engage in some meaningful and informative discussions to inform our responses with transgender students. Fortunately, the ACA Convention met here in San Francisco, and they approached us to offer the training. Kevin and Ilsa presented SFUSD specific transgender data for both trainings, setting a framework to keep the trainings rooted in SFUSD needs.

Our teachers, nurses, social workers, school counselors, and GSA members assist us with defining which professional development topics are of interest. Plans are already underway for which direction we will take next year.

Learn about health and safety risks associated with LGBTQ youth in these brand new findings.

View Student Safety Data