News
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Central Illinois Day of Silence Organizing Summit-March 13th:
Our Central Illinois Day of Silence Organizing Summit will be held on March 13th at Parkland College, D244, 2400 W Bradley Ave, in Champaign. This summit is a great way to connect and network with other GSAs in your area, and to learn more about the safe schools organizing work happening across the state. Some of our workshops will be Direct Action Organizing, Responding to Everyday Homophobia, and Building a Campaign. Please register by downloading the form here and emailing, mailing, or faxing it to David Fischer, david@illinoissafeschools.org or 312/368.0283
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Chicagoland Day of Silence Organizing Summit-March 6th:
Our Chicagoland Day of Silence Organizing Summit will be held on March 6th at Oak Park/River Forest High School, 201 N Scoville Ave, in Oak Park from 9-4:30. This event brings together youth and GSA Advisors from all over the city and suburbs to network, plan for the Day of Silence, learn tools for activism and organizing, and have fun. Please register by downloading the form here and emailing, mailing, or faxing it to David Fischer, david@illinoissafeschools.org or 312/368.0283 -
Order Your 2010 Day of Silence Kits:
Make sure your Gay-Straight Alliance is prepared for the Day of Silence with a Day of Silence kit. These kits include t-shirts, buttons, palm cards, posters and resources that will help you make this year's Day of Silence great.
Download the order form here and fax or email it to David at david@illinoissafeschools.org or 312/368.0283
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Alliance Youth Leaders Win Windy City Times 30 Under 30 Awards:
Congratulations to Alliance youth leaders Xavy Ramirez, Scott Jaburek, Tea Sefer, Che che Turrubiartez, and Matt Schlagel (not pictured) for winning Windy City Times 30 Under 30 awards for the amazing work in the LGBTQ community! This work includes lobbying Chicago Public Schools to include Gender Identity/Expression in its Non-Discrimination Policy, organizing youth leadership summits for nearly 200 youth in the Chicagoland area, supporting individual GSA organizing efforts statewide for the annual Day of Silence, and leading their own high school Gay Straight Alliances.
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Visibility Matters: LGBTQ Presence (or lack thereof) in Teacher Prep in Illinois:
sThe Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (the Alliance) just released Visibility Matters, the first statewide report card on LGBTQ presence in higher education and teacher preparation in Illinois. This landmark report examines the inclusion of sexual orientation (SO) and gender identity (GI) in university policies related to anti-discrimination and in student codes of conduct, and for SO and GI specifically in teacher education programs. Seventy-two percent, or forty-one out the state’s fifty-seven teacher education preparation programs, received a failing grade of F. The Alliance, through its Pre-Professional Preparation Project, is mailing the report to all 57 programs throughout the state, along with recommendations for increasing the presence of SO and GI in policies and curricula. For more information, please contact Shannon at shannon@illinoissafeschools.org
Interested in working with your school to add gender identity/expression to policies that already have sexual orientation? Please see our fact sheet here
View the report summary with comprehensive report card here
View the full report with detailed information on each school here (note: to easily access information on an individual school, click on 'bookmarks' in the document, then click on the school's name)
Join the conversation! Visit the Visibility Matters 'wikipage' to contribute to the discussion about how this has impacted you and your institution