The discussion of Gay Pride flags in Monongalia County classrooms is now over.
Officially.
Apparently.
Call it a vote – about a vote.
After a lengthy back-and-forth this week, the BOE decided 3-2 to not include the issue on the agendas of future meetings.
For now, anyway.
The controversial decision involving the flags wasn’t about personal identity, the district said last month when the call went forth.
It was about politics.
Or, rather, the reaction to politics of the mean-spirited kind.
Sweeping classroom walls and bulletin boards free of anything that smacks of ideology, or even party affiliation, just might tamp down the heated rhetoric of a divisive campaign season, administrators said.
“We want to keep our classrooms out of the political arena,” Deputy Schools Superintendent Donna Talerico said. “We want our kids to learn how to think for themselves.”
Hundreds of students spoke for themselves in the days that followed.
Members and supporters of the LGBTQ+ community rallied in the parking lot of the district’s central offices in Sabraton and walked out of their classes at Morgantown High School in solidarity.
They flooded BOE chambers for meetings and made sure they signed up for the public comment portion.
Seeing a sticker depicting the flag on a bulletin board, many of them said, made them feel safe to be who they are.
Dan Berry, a retired Monongalia County educator in his first term in office, said during Tuesday’s meeting that if the goal was to avoid political controversy by removing the flag, it was a failing grade.
Members of the faculty senates of MHS, University High and Clay-Battelle have also written letters chiding the district for its decision.
“We made it political by banning it,” Berry said.
He made the initial motion to place the measure on an agenda, so the board could vote to reinstate the flags – or not – opposed to a central office decree.
BOE President Ron Lytle, though, countered by saying a flag isn’t necessarily going to help a student who is put-upon feel safe.
Bullying is just part of the unfortunate social order of school, Lytle said – but documentation, as a start, he added, can lead to solutions.
“We’ve got to start seeing some data,” the board president said.
“Is there a rise in bullying? Is there something going on in the school system?”
Meanwhile, teachers and students at Morgantown High are proposing “Safe Zones” there, to go with enhanced emotional health training in the system through LGBTQ+ advocates at WVU.
They also plan to organize in-school diversity and inclusion committees, modeling theirs after the district-wide one already in place.
Lytle likes that idea and said he wants to start hearing regular reports from all parties above at board meetings.
“That’s how you move forward,” he said.
The Rev. Jenny Williams countered that, however.
Besides pastoring at an area church, Williams is also an advocate who does outreach work for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Moving forward, she said, means listening first.
“You said to the students, ‘If you’re having trouble and you don’t feel safe at our schools, let us know, and you’ll be taken care of,’” she said.
“The thing is, they told you that they don’t feel safe, and they repeatedly told you what would make them feel safe.”
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