News
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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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Night of Noise 2009!:
We are so excited about our largest Night of Noise ever! Thanks to everyone who gathered this year to break the silence together, speak out about your experiences in school, and ask the Chicago Public Schools to add gender identity/expression to the non-discrimination policy. Pictures coming soon! -
Visibility Matters: LGBTQ Presence (or lack thereof) in Teacher Prep in Illinois:
The 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 heet 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