Georgia (Georgia Safe Schools Coalition)
25 signatures reached
To: Our school board
We need a GSA at North Whitfield Middle School!
Allow us to start a GSA at North Whitfield Middle School so that all students can feel that they have a safe space to be themselves and to be in a place full of support and care. Students at North Whitfield should be able to have a place where they can freely express their feelings in a way that they may not be able to in a large crowd of students who don't really understand what they are going through. This club will be open to all members of the LGBT+ community and straight allies. The club should be treated as any other club.
Why is this important?
My middle school experience was filled with some hate and bullying at the start until I found a couple of people like me. We started talking about starting a petition and even went to our school counselor about it. We didn't think about it that much afterwards so it was forgotten about. A couple of months later the idea came back to me and I decided to go all the way with it.
A Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club would provide a much-needed safe place for students to meet, support each other, talk about issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, and work to create positive change on campus.
Under the Federal Equal Access Act (http://www.gsanetwork.org/equal-access-act), any school that receives government funding and has at least one other non-curricular club is legally required to also allow a GSA. Legally, public schools with other clubs must let students start a GSA -- and must treat the GSA like any other student club! Schools can't make up rules that only apply to the GSA and nobody else.
GSAs have been proven to make schools safer for all students. Allow us to start a GSA so that ALL students can succeed.