Utah Middle School Defends Outing Gay Student

[solarcat]

As The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting, the 14-year-old boy's parents, who have asked that their names not be released to media, were notified by a teacher because officials at Willowcreek Middle School in Lehi say they were making an effort to be "proactive" in preventing bullying. "We do include parents any time there's a potential safety issue with a student," said Rhonda Bromley, a spokesperson for Utah's Alpine School District.

Utah Middle School Defends Outing Gay Student To Parents As Bullying Prevention Effort (VIDEO)

[Hexagon]

Come on. Parents can be hard to deal with when they're not supportive, and it has to be up to the kid to decide if they'll be supportive or not. And as it said, they violated his right to privacy.

[mnguy]

Teachers certainly should be concerned and take action when they hear anti-gay comments about a kid. The teachers should make eachother aware of what's going on and monitor what's going on in classes, halls, cafe, etc. They certainly could talk to the student confidentially and with a counselor and ask the student if he fears for his safety at home if the parent(s) find out the child is gay. I'm glad the parents are supportive so in this case it turned out well so far. I could just as easily see this situation ending badly if the parents are shitheads and abuse the kid for being gay and make his life a living hell.

[Ridiculous]

Yes, as this situation appears to have ended well with the parents being supportive, and it seems that the school was acting out of the interest in the child's well being rather than some sort of persecution against him for being gay, I hope that the school isn't overly criticised.

It'd be much better if activists take this opportunity to highlight why schools in general should be very careful in these situations, rather than just bashing the particular school in question.

[Sheyceli]

I think it was inappropriate of the school to out the student to his parents. As stated above, what if the parents were not supportive of this? Yes, the school is supposed to protect the student from bullying, but they could easily tell the parents they suspect this without sharing such information as their child's sexual orientation. It is the child's choice if and when to tell their parents, not the school's.

[seeksanctuary]

The school didn't exactly "out him" to his parents.

They suggested a conference with this parents, which he agreed to... reluctantly, but he DID agree. Yes, he should have had all the time in the world to tell his parents, but I agree with the school somewhat in that kids NEED their parents and need their support in times of hardship. If it is in ANY way possible to help parents understand what is going on, I think the opportunity should be taken. The staff helped mediate, the kid came out, his parents were supportive and they are now better able to understand what is going on with their son... and better able to help him.

If the school had FORCED him to tell his parents or told his parents without asking, that would be outing him. That isn't what happened.

[ArcusPravus]

Even if the school didn't have his permission they had an obligation to inform his parents. Not because his parents need to know his orientation but because he was being bullied. It's the school's responsibility to inform a student's parents if there are problems involving the student. You can't inform them that their son is being bullied without telling them why. The school is not the kid's parents and is not allowed to make decisions regarding what is and is not in the kid's best interest. That is the duty of the parents. Now if the parents fail on their end, that's a seperate issue but not one the school has any right in interferring with. Too often in far too many situations schools, video games, movies, television, etc. are blamed for problems involving children while people ignore that parent's are the ones responsible for their children.

Yes, there can be issues if the parents are not supportive of their kid. But notice that statement didn't even mention sexual orientation. That's because it's an entirely seperate issue. You could easily come up with many other scenarios where the school discovers an issue involving a student where the parents could have a severly negative response to finding out that don't have anything to do with orientation. In every one of those cases, there would be no argument that the parents should be informed and this case isn't any different.

Beyond that the school did what it was suppose to do, he chose to make his orientation known at school and was being bullied for that. Information is either public or private and you can't have it both ways. Once you make it public in any way, you lose any ability in making it private because you no longer control it.