Advocacy group says school officials need to implement training, enforcement processes
Tom Anable
Tammye Nash | Senior Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com
FORT WORTH — Representatives of Fairness Fort Worth are set to meet next Tuesday, Oct. 25, with Walter Dansby, interim superintendent of the Fort Worth
Independent School District, and FFW President Tom Anable said his organization is hoping to see the district’s plans for implementing training and enforcement processes related to its anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies.
In the past year, the Fort Worth school board has, since the first of this year, expanded the district’s anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies to include protections based on gender identity and gender expression; protections based on sexual orientation were already included.
The board voted in January to include those protections in policies applying to faculty and staff members, and in June to policies applying to students.
LGBT advocates have routinely praised the district for those votes, noting that the changes make the FWISD policies among the most progressive and comprehensive in the state. This week, however, Anable said advocates have become frustrated with the district’s slow progress in implementing training regarding the policies and in enforcing them.
“They are talking the talk, now we want them to walk the walk,” Anable said.
He pointed to a series of recent incidences in Fort Worth schools as evidence that training and enforcement are lacking, including the mid-September furor that erupted over a Western Hills High School student’s alleged anti-gay comments in class.
Dakota Ary told the media that his German class teacher, Kristopher Franks, sent him to the principal after he made a comment to a friend during a classroom discussion, basically saying that as a Christian, he believes homosexuality is wrong.
Franks, however, said that Ary made the comment directly to him, that the comment was not pertinent to any classroom discussion and
Carlos Vasquez
that it was part of a pattern of anti-gay comments and behavior aimed at him by Ary and three other students in the class.
Although Ary was initially suspended, school officials rescinded the punishment and cleared his record after Ary’s mother brought in Liberty Counsel’s Matt Krause to represent them and complained to school district officials.
Within days, school officials notified Franks that they were launching an investigation of him based on unrelated charges of inappropriate behavior that had just surfaced. Franks was suspended with pay for the duration of the investigation, but returned to the classroom three days later after the investigation cleared him of any wrongdoing.
Franks still ended up with a “letter of concern” in his file, the lowest form of discipline the district can take against a teacher, and was required to take a course in classroom management.
In an email to school board members dated Oct. 4, Franks also said that the Western Hills High School principal had, on his first day back in class, conducted an in-class evaluation — during the class that includes Dakota Ary — that Franks said was unwarranted and overly harsh. Franks said the principal refused to discipline a student who put on a pink shirt and “a pink lady’s hat” and pranced around the room to mock Franks, even though the principal was in the room when it happened.
Franks also said he learned from other students that the group of students who had been harassing him previously, during the time while he was suspended, were allowed by a substitute teacher to “dress in drag” and make fun of Franks.
Although Franks has since told colleagues the problem had been addressed and settled to his satisfaction, Anable said this week that the fact the harassment was allowed in the first place points to a lack of training and enforcement on the anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies.
In a second recent incident, a secretary at Carter-Riverside High School recently sent a memo through the school’s email system in which she quoted biblical passages supposedly condemning homosexuality while questioning the wisdom of allowing a “gender-bending day” during the school’s homecoming week activities.
“I am concerned that it may cause more confusion with those who are struggling with their own sexuality, which is common for teens,” wrote Victoria Martinez, who works in the school’s internal finance office.
She continued, “As representatives of FWISD, I would hate to think we are partakers of encouraging a lifestyle, which is an abomination unto the LORD, and which may not be acceptable to many parents of our children. We should strive to keep our students’ focus on academics and not what they or others are doing in the bedroom.”
And, Anable said, there have been reports that same-sex couples at the district’s Diamon Hill-Jarvis High School have been disciplined for holding hands at school, while opposite-sex couples holding hands have not gotten in trouble.
Openly gay FWISD Board of Trustees member Carlos Vasquez said Wednesday that he was disappointed that Fairness Fort Worth had decided to go public with its criticisms since, “We have already solved most of the issues and concerns they are bringing up.”
Vasquez said that had “visited with Kris Franks” during the recent Tarrant County Gay Pride Picnic, and that while “there were some concerns on his first day back in the class, those were quickly resolved.”
And Vasquez said that district officials had responded quickly to Martinez’s email, removing it from the email system and reprimanding the secretary.
“As soon as this was brought to my attention, I spoke to Supt. Dansby, the superintendent took care of it immediately,” Vasquez said, adding that Dansby “took the appropriate measures” against Martinez but that he could not elaborate further because he cannot discuss personnel matters.
Vasquez also said that he had not heard of any complaints from Diamon Hill-Jarvis before a call Wednesday from Dallas Voice.
“That’s one of my schools. It’s in my [school board] district,” Vasquez said. “I have already called the principal there and she said she had not heard anything about that, either. She assured me that all the students are being treated fairly.”
Vasquez continued, “I am kind of surprised that [Fairness Fort Worth] felt the need to go to the press with this. Supt. Dansby is working with the LGBT community, he’s working with me on these issues. This is the most open this school district has ever been with the LGBT community.”
But Anable said Fairness Fort Worth is simply trying to let the school district know that the community is watching and expects the district to follow through on its commitments in terms of training and enforcement of the anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies.
“We are not trying to be overly critical. But we do want them to know that we will keep the pressure on,” Anable said. “We have these policies in place, and we want to make sure they are enforced.”
Anable said his organization also wants to make sure that the LGBT community “has a place at the table” as the district continues its search for a permanent superintendent.
Dansby was appointed interim superintendent after former Supt. Melody Johnson resigned in June amid controversy, and the district continues a nation-wide search for a permanent replacement for Johnson.
Anable said the school board “creating a forum/focus group to assist the consultants they’ve hired to conduct the search for a new permanent superintendent, and we want to know if the district intends to include the LGBT community in that focus group,” Anable said. “We’ve made great progress in the schools here in Fort Worth. Now we don’t want to see them bring in someone who will ignore that progress and take the school district backwards on our issues.”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 21, 2011.
I am a Fort Worth ISD elementary school teacher. I am openly gay to my fellow co-workers and administrators; my wife volunteers at my school. While I have had nothing but support at my campus, I was shocked to see and hear my school’s current District Policies handbook. Knowing the recent inclusion of protections for both LGBT students and employees, I was disappointed to see the absence of such polices in my handbook.
Under the title: INCLUSION OF ALL STUDENTS: it stated the “right to equal educational opportunities regardless of RACE, GENDER, ECONOMIC LEVEL or ABILITY level. NOTHING was stated about the recent policy of sexual orientation or gender expression.
Clearly, this is another example of the district NOT WALKING THE WALK. It’s time for follow-through Mr. Dansby.
FWISD Teacher: I concur with your position, but I think the root of the problem(s) does not lie so much with FWISD as it does with our society in general. If parents would step up and ACT like parents, raising their kids to honor the value of respect for others, then we wouldn’t be seeing some of the things that we are seeing in today’s society. The parents are the problem, not the kids. (And I can speak from experience. I had the worse set of parents on the planet.)
It is sad that the politicians (Carlos Vasquez in this case, himself a gay man) should say that the GLBT community (teachers, staff, and students) should be patient. I am getting so tired of the abuse from politicians who use the gay community for support then throw us under the bus when it is convenient. If this were the case of an African-American (i.e. a district employee sending out an email that said that the Bible shows that people of color are marked by god (and yes this has bee preached from the Christain Bible), and that having a celebration of African-American culture would somehow harm the kids), we would have an uroar and the African-American community would be storming the central offices. If it were a case of woman bashing (i.e. a student saying that he didn’t beleive that women should teach because the Bible says, “I don’t allow women to teach or hold authority over men”) there would be a punishment of the student and not the teacher. Why is it that we allow the people in power to continually tell us that it is okay to hurt our community. Is it any wonder our children are committing suicide at such a high rate. They are doing it because the adults (and that includes comprimisors like Fairness Fort Worth and Human Rights Campaign who desire a seat of power more than they desire protections of their communities.) won’t do their job and protect them. When a young person commits suicide because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, it is no different that exploding a bomb in a church a killing young black children. Until our community takes responsibility for these children and start demanding that school protect them, the blood is on our hands.
Marlin Bynum I am not sure where or when you have heard me state that our community should be patient. I have never made that statement!
Our school district and the FWISD board has enacted some of the most strict policies against discrimination including that of our LGBT students and employees. There will always be people who violate these policies and they have been and will be dealt with. Please get you facts straight!
Mr. Vasquez,
Here is what the DV said, “Openly gay FWISD Board of Trustees member Carlos Vasquez said Wednesday that he was disappointed that Fairness Fort Worth had decided to go public with its criticisms since, “We have already solved most of the issues and concerns they are bringing up.””
It seems to me you are saying don’t complain we are working on it. But there is a teacher who was harrassed and yet he is the on being disciplined with a “letter of concern,” while another person sends a harrassing email, and only gets a slap on the wrist. This is not solving issues. You telling FFW not to talk publicly, is the same as telling them, and the community, please be quiet and don’t embarrass us, or be patient we are working on it.
If I misinterpreted your statment, I apologize, but it sounds like you are telling FFW to shut up, and the community to wait. It seems you are supporting a double standard, saying the district can have time to work things out while students and staff suffer.
You have not only misinterpreted you have assumed! Talk to those in my community and even to those in FFW they will tell you that I am one of their strongest supporters. TEAM WORK goes a lot further and gets better results!
Cool,
Hopefully next time your statements will reflect your full-fledged support — i.e. “I am thankful that FFW exposed the failures that we have had in protecting the GLBTQ community at our schools. We shouldn’t have punished a teacher who was being harrassed We should have not bowed to political pressure of certain communities and kept in place the punishment of the student who harrassed our teacher. The person who sent out the message of hate and oppression will be fully punished. We will no longer allow any form of harrassment against the GLBTQ community. Our GLBT community, children and adult, deserves our greatest support and respect.”
When I hear those kinds of statements then I hear — full support. Your words just don’t sound like that to me. I guess “disappointment” is really a code word for support. and “We have solved” is code word for we beat up the gay teacher. Sorry I assumed the wrong interpretation. Your words don’t match the reality.
Later.