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Right in time for Park Day Pride, our middle school Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) has made an episode centered around the importance of expansive gender expression – featuring conversations with four LGBTQ+ community changemakers. Tune in now to hear about the origin story, impact and business model of the Out & About mobile bookshop, followed by an interview about the power of Drag artistry with Lei All Day and Lotus Boy. This episode features 16 Park Day voices – hear what they have to say!👂🏽🎶

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IYKMM Prideful Expressions - Park Day School

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Click the image above to listen!

In this episode we ask our community about their favorite Park Day Pride memory, review and discuss the importance of LGBTQ+ literature, and highlight a student-led design + build project all about creating belonging in our student body. This episode is made in collaboration with our Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) and features 38 different voices – not to mention contributions from many more – hear what they have to say!👂🏽🎶

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Credits

Thank you to the following:

Hosts: Callum McNeil, Eli McDonald, Kairos Reyes-Silas, Liam Leslie-Greene, Orion Petrone,

Student producers: Liam Leslie-Greene, Kairos Reyes-Silas, Orion Petrone

Executive Producer: Arjuna Sayyed

Associate Producer: Liam Leslie-Greene

IYKMM Logo: Christina Chung

IYKMM Intro Vocals: Adian Plowe and Lisa Ostapinski, Naomi Crawford, Djumi Sayyed and Angela Taylor.

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IYKMM Pride Week Special - Park Day School

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Thank you to the following: Hosts: Callum McNeil, Eli McDonald, Kairos Reyes-Silas, Liam Leslie-Greene, Orion Petrone, Student producers: Liam Leslie-Greene, Kairos Reyes-Silas, Orion Petrone Executive Producer: Arjuna Sayyed Associate Producer: Liam Leslie-Greene IYKMM Logo: Christina Chung IYKMM Intro Vocals: Adian Plowe and Lisa Ostapinski, Naomi Crawford, Djumi Sayyed and Angela Taylor.

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Click the image above to listen!

In special episode, we highlight the efforts the GSA is making to honor the original intentions of the Queer Counter while also updating it to reflect the current identity of Park Day’s proud queer student community. This episode features 18 different voices – lower and middle school students, alum and staff – hear what they have to say!👂🏽🎶

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Credits

Thank you to the following:

Hosts and Field Reporters: Ainara Ver, Darwynn Warmack and Iona Singletary

Guests: Ray McNeil, Grecia Bloom + the Gender and Sexuality Alliance

IYKMM Logo: Christina Chung

IYKMM Intro Vocals: Adian Plowe and Lisa Ostapinski, Naomi Crawford, Djumi Sayyed and Angela Taylor.

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IYKMM PRIDE SPECIAL: Queer Peers at Park Day - Park Day School

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Thank you to the following: Hosts and Field Reporters: Ainara Ver, Darwynn Warmack and Iona Singletary Guests: Ray McNeil, Grecia Bloom + the Gender and Sexuality Alliance IYKMM Logo: Christina Chung IYKMM Intro Vocals: Adian Plowe and Lisa Ostapinski, Naomi Crawford, Djumi Sayyed and Angela Taylor.

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Here's a l👀k at the GSA chalking the Pride Path out before they make it permanent with paint!

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The GSA is a group of queer people of allies of the LGBTQ community and people who want to support them. It's mostly here  so people can connect with people who are like them or they can show support to people who are in that community.
- GSA Student

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An ally is a beautiful being that supports the LGBTQ2S+ community and what it means is...opening the doors to everyone that feels  different, and with no judgies...and also whenever there is a situation or an injustice happening, there is somebody to back us up and march with us, protest with, read books with us. Somebody that is holding our hand!

- Grecia (GSA Advisor + MS Spanish Teacher)

What do you think, friends? Share your definition in the comment section below!

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Here's a mock up of the GSA-designed Pride Path, which will be the new home of the Queer Counter!

What's not featured here is the rainbow pathway painted across the sidewalk that will symbolize fluidity and safety!

Let us know what you think in the comment section below!

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And, here it is....the marvelous, student made Queer Counter! 👏🏽

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And, here it is....the marvelous, student made Queer Counter! 👏🏽

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Just love this inclusive fun community!  Great voices on this podcast!!💥

-Ingrid

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Park Day Pride featured in the SF Gate in 2002!!!

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Park Day Pride featured in the SF Gate in 2002!!!

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"The students at Park Day School in Oakland are probably the only elementary school kids in America whose spelling lists contain words such as "homosexual," "lesbian" and "transgender."

At a time when high schools around the country are battling over bringing gay studies and gay student clubs to campus, the private Park Day School is skipping the controversy and being straight with little kids about gay life."

Click the link above to read the whole article!

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

2002-03-10 04:00:00 PDT Oakland -- The students at Park Day School in Oakland are probably the only elementary school kids in America whose spelling lists contain words such as "homosexual," "lesbian" and "transgender."

At a time when high schools around the country are battling over bringing gay studies and gay student clubs to campus, the private Park Day School is skipping the controversy and being straight with little kids about gay life.

Last week, the kindergarten through sixth grade school hosted 45 speakers from a list of Bay Area's gay movers and shakers, including KFOG disc jockey Dave Morey and East Bay chocolatier John Scharffenberger. A lesbian married couple spoke, as did a lesbian animal caretaker and a lesbian Baptist minister.

A male therapist who was once female talked to the sixth-graders.

None of the speakers had ever been invited to talk about their personal lives to schoolchildren before, and the exercise brought some of the adults to tears.

Students wanted to know when the guests first knew they were gay, how they came out to their families and whether the speakers ever encountered homophobia. The youngest children had few questions about homosexuality, preferring instead to talk about the puppies or chocolate bars involved in the speakers' jobs.

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, which had never been invited to perform at any school in its 24-year history, treated the children to songs about self- pride, an ode to Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City," and the Sesame Street Ernie classic, "Rubber Ducky."

Former San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt talked to them about growing from a lonely gay child at Robert E. Lee Elementary in Texas to a San Francisco supervisor who carried on the legacy of tolerance after the shooting deaths of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, who was gay.

"The idea," said Park Day Director Tom Little, "is that if they ever encounter homophobia, their association will be that lots and lots of wonderful people they have met have been hurt by that."

Not one parent complained, Little said. In fact, several came to the school to thank him for broaching a sensitive subject and making it easier to discuss gay topics at home.

That may be because Park Day School was founded in 1976 by progressive parents who wanted their students to study social justice and diversity. Every year, the school hosts Care Week to study a disenfranchised segment of society.

Last year it was the disabled. This year it was the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender group -- or "GLBT" group, according to the students' vocabulary list.

Teachers posted the new vocabulary words in hallways, on playground fences and on doors to help students study.

"You need to learn prejudice, and this is the right age to get to them, before it starts," said parent Beverly Burch.

Public schools have had a harder time bringing gay issues into the classroom. A parental uproar arose in Danville last year when some teachers and gay activists at Charlotte Wood Middle School wanted to hold gay tolerance classes in the wake of a student-created homophobic Web site directed at an openly gay teacher. In a compromise, the teachers union held a voluntary class for teachers only, which was sparsely attended.

On the flip side, school districts in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland provide offices and counselors for gay and questioning youth.

While their parents debate, students have taken up the mantle at several school districts, bolstered by a state law that went into effect in 2000 barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in California public schools. They have created more than 800 Gay/Straight Student Alliances at schools in 46 states, despite resistance from school boards and parents in many cities, including California's Clovis and Orange.

A bill to "prohibit the promotion of homosexuality in public education" introduced by Southern California Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy, R-Monrovia, died in committee this year.

"I think things are changing. Park Day is definitely not like my elementary school was in Weaver, Ala.," said Gay Men's Chorus member Carlton Lowe. "It was exhilarating to sing for them and see how engrossed they were in our songs. "

Students had homework, too.

They wrote essays on famous gay people such as Michelangelo, interviewed a family member who was in the gay community or knew someone else who was, and wrote Dear Abby-style letters to imaginary gay children who had been teased on the playground. They decorated their classrooms with rainbow flags and pictures of singer Melissa Etheridge and her partner.

And in a move to stamp out anti-gay slurs, they wrote gay epithets using salt on the playground, then kicked off their shoes and smudged them out.

For 11-year-old Ben Ruffman-Cohen, who has two moms, last week was "the best week of my life."

He was part of the speakers circuit, and talked to the first-graders about his family. He told them he does the same stuff at home that they do with a mom and a dad. On the baseball form, he just crosses out the box for "father" and writes "mother" over it.

"I told them to imagine how much they love their mom and then double that," he said. "That's my life.

"A lot of schools don't have the opportunity to do this, and if I even said the word 'gay' other places, there would be a lot of flinching. Now all 225 of us here know how to be gay allies," he said, using another vocabulary word.

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Teaching the reality of gay life / Oakland schoolkids learn a rare lesson

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2002-03-10 04:00:00 PDT Oakland -- The students at Park Day School in Oakland are probably the only elementary school kids in America whose spelling lists contain words such as "homosexual," "lesbian" and "transgender."

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Check out our friends at Gender Spectrum!

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Check out our friends at Gender Spectrum!

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Did you know that Park Day has been partnering with our friends at Gender Spectrum for years to support our classrooms and community?

"Gender Spectrum works to create gender sensitive and inclusive environments for all children and teens."

Visit their website for a wide range of resources...for parents, educators and everyone!

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OUR MISSION

Gender Spectrum works to create gender sensitive and inclusive environments for all children and teens.

Resources for Challenging Times

Our online groups and events, and other resources for

gender expansive youth and families during the time of Covid-19.

Online Consulting

Gender Spectrum has years of experience in creating safe, successful online spaces

for adults and young people. If your organization is doing more work online, we can help.
Online Consulting
Groups

Gender Spectrum hosts online groups for pre-teens,

teens, parents, caregivers, and other family members.
View All Groups

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Gender Spectrum Homepage - Gender Spectrum

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Gender Spectrum works to create gender sensitive and inclusive environments for all children and teens. Our online groups and events, and other resources for gender expansive youth and families during the time of Covid-19. Gender Spectrum has years of experience in creating safe, successful online spaces for adults and young people.

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Brush up on your LGBTQ+ Alphabet with this short, colorful video clip!

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Brush up on your LGBTQ+ Alphabet with this short, colorful video clip!

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What is a Woman? - Defining Gender Identity

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A great 3 min video for all of the confused, curious uncles out there...or for anyone. Check it out!

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A great 3 min video for all of the confused, curious uncles out there...or for anyone. Check it out!

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As featured on the IYKMM Pride Week Book Review with Eli and Orion

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As featured on the IYKMM Pride Week Book Review with Eli and Orion

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As featured on the IYKMM Pride Week Book Review with Orion and Eli!

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As featured on the IYKMM Pride Week Book Review with Orion and Eli!

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What's Your Favorite Park Day Pride Memory? 

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What's Your Favorite Park Day Pride Memory? 

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Let us know below!!!!

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Park Day, where's your PRIDE...It's right here, it's INSIDE!!!

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Park Day, where's your PRIDE...It's right here, it's INSIDE!!!

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One of my favorite Park Day Pride memories was the band that played at the assembly

7th grader

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Behind the scenes of the Queer Counter Creation!

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Behind the scenes of the Queer Counter Creation!

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Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test, and finally BUILD FOR BELONGING!!!

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Supported by Design, Make, Engage Director, Ilya Pratt, GSA members used a design thinking process to create a Queer Counter.

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An honorable mention goes to.....

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (7th grade+)

Drama (all ages)

They Both Die at the End (6th grade+)

We Are Okay (6th Grade +)

The Song of Achilles (7th grade+)

Loveless (7th Grade+)

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Were you there on this day? What was your own personal highlight?

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Share your WOWS & WONDERS wherever you'd like!