Announcements and Reminders
Our district governor will be here August 10th. There will be an early board meeting that same day at 10:30.
Keith’s house tomorrow (July 21) will be the setting for a cocktail party at 4:00. All are invited! Bring munchies if you wish!
Win announced that there will be a club assembly on the 27th and a possible Facebook training.
Pam Goodman reminded us that the Walk for Alzheimer’s is September 23rd. You can donate here at our club.
Bee introduced our speakers today. They were Rob Darrow, Director of Research and Ron Indra, Executive Director from the Safe Schools Project. Established in 2004, it now reaches out to the 40,000 k-12 students in our local school districts.
Mr. Indra gave us a quick history of the LGBT community here. It began organizing in the 70’s soon after Stonewall and established the Diversity Center. Laws that affect LGBT students (only in California) include a mandate to teach inclusive sex education, no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, inclusion of lgbt history and transgender protection. These have all been passed since 2000. Safe Schools Project staff provide inservice training for teachers, counselors and administrators so that the new laws mentioned above are implemented.
Three organizations in SC county work closely together on LGBTQ issues: The Diversity Center, Queer Task Force and the Safe School project. New projects include PFlag as well as trans family support groups. Triangle speakers go into schools (as well as other settings) and share their life experiences.
They also work to augment curriculum topics and history syllabi so that they are inclusive (for instance, including Stonewell riots). Other key areas include: offering rainbow clubs, offering mental health services and creating supportive communities.
For more info see safeschoolproject.org.