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My professional perspective of education is that as a professional we should conduct our work in an effective and professional manner while also working to improve skills, collaborate with parents and colleagues, and think creatively to make instruction effective.

The targeted audience is the administration of Cinco Ranch High School

The topic I chose is Education Equity/Equality among  LGBTQ students because many times we see students in these populations having negative educational experiences, discrimination, and not receiving the same opportunities as their peers. Even though many people may not agree with LGBTQ in general, students within this population still deserve receiving the same resources and opportunities in school and they should be provided with a safe and welcoming environment where they are able to learn.

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1. Why the topic is important: This is a very prevalent issue in our world today and especially in education. Many students within these populations often times feel discriminated against, unsafe and not welcomed, judged, and not having the same opportunities as their peers due to them being "different" from the norm. When they are not given the same opportunities as their peers, students in these populations begin to have negative thoughts and feelings that will effect their mental, personal, social, and academic wellness and often times leads to negative consequences such as suicide. But it is up to the school counselor to ensure that all students' needs are being met to ensure overall wellness of the student.

2. Best Practices:
1. Develop, implement, and manage guidance curriculum.
2. Consult/Counsel students and parents
3. Responsive Services
4. System Support

3. An area emerging that educators should watch is the "Don't Say Gay Bill" that prohibits discussions and teachings of lessons that talk about a student's gender identity and sexual preference. This will play a large role in education because parents will try and sue school districts if it is taught, but then parents of student's who do fall in this population are upset due to the lack of protection provided to their students.
4. I interviewed Susie DeYoung; Counselor at Cinco Ranch High School. https://www.katyisd.org/domain/1821

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Counsel individuals and small groups of students to meet identified needs. Deliver the guidance curriculum and assist teachers with the school's guidance curriculum. Consult with parents, teachers, and other staff regarding concerns about students' needs. Coordinate​ people and resources in the community for the benefit of students. Participate in planning, implementing and evaluating a comprehensive developmental guidance and counseling program to serve all students. Be familiar with and adhere to the ethical, legal, and professional standards of the counseling profession. Speak UP is an anonymous reporting system that enables Katy ISD students, parents, and community members to anonymously submit safety and well-being tips to help prevent school-related incidents that could cause harm to others.

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Counsel individuals and small groups of students to meet identified needs. Deliver the guidance curriculum and assist teachers with the school's guidance curriculum. Consult with parents, teachers, and other staff regarding concerns about students' needs. Coordinate​ people and resources in the community for the benefit of students.

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Professional Association: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN)

Summary: The purpose of this association is to advocate for a safe and supportive educational environment for all students within this population.

Citation: Championing LGBTQ issues in K-12 education. GLSEN. (n.d.). Retrieved July 20, 2022, from https://www.glsen.org/

Link: https://www.glsen.org/#:~:text=GLSEN%20believes%20that%20every%20student,make%20this%20right%20a%20reality.

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In this statement, GLSEN's National Student Council condemns police brutality and calls for greater support for Black lives

Read the Statement

Our Work

GLSEN believes that every student has the right to a safe, supportive, and LGBTQ-inclusive K-12 education. We are a national network of educators, students, and local GLSEN Chapters working to make this right a reality.

Our research and experience has shown that there are four major ways that schools can cultivate a safe and supportive environment for all of their students, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

News & Press

There's no place for religious coercion in public education. All kids, regardless of religion, race, gender or sexual orientation, deserve a welcoming school experience.

Ruling threatens millions of people's right to bodily autonomy, especially trans and LGBTQ+ youth already facing disproportionate barriers to abortion care.

We must call on our representatives to stand up for students and oppose extremists' attempts to privatize our education system.

GLSEN Programs

Advocate for students. Advocate for your friends. Advocate for yourself. Learn about our programs and take action today.

Get involved and join your community, local, or state GLSEN chapter

GLSEN Chapters create LGBTQ-inclusive schools. Community-led chapters offer teacher trainings, student support, community outreach, and more.

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In this statement, GLSEN's National Student Council condemns police brutality and calls for greater support for Black lives Read the Statement GLSEN believes that every student has the right to a safe, supportive, and LGBTQ-inclusive K-12 education. We are a national network of educators, students, and local GLSEN Chapters working to make this right a reality.

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When it comes to LGBTQ and the classroom, many government officials are prohibiting the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in the elementary classrooms, which is causing a lot of outrage among many advocates within the community because of the lack of safety and equity being provided to students in this population in an educational setting.

In the EdWeek article, it is found that many educators are divided on the idea of teaching LGBTQ topics such as gender identity and sexual orientation in the classroom because some think it is necessary to create a safe, positive, and welcoming environment for students and it allows students to be themselves without feeling any negative judgement or consequences from it. However, on the other hand some teachers feel as if elementary students are too young to learn about it at this age and that it should be something that is taught at home by parents and that it should not be the responsibility of the teachers to teach students about this.

Reference: Najarro, I. (2022, January 31). Teachers are divided on teaching LGBTQ topics. Education Week. Retrieved July 20, 2022, from
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/educators-divided-on-whether-schools-should-teach-about-lgbtq-topics-survey-finds/2021/12

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The LGBTQ population is steadily increasing in schools and many schools, teachers, administrators, other students, and the community do not know exactly how to handle situations with students within the LGBTQ population and how to provide the most support for these students so they have the same education equality and opportunities as their peers.

In a recent Edutopia article, many teachers are calling for more training on how to appropriately and effectively support LGBTQ students in the classroom to ensure they feel safe, welcomed, and heard while also ensuring they are receiving education equity. When teachers ask for trainings on how to handle this, many districts and administrators are "reluctant" to providing trainings for teachers. Without appropriate trainings on how to handle this, many teachers feel lost and that their hands are tied but feel the best thing they can do for these students is to provide a safe environment in the classroom where there is no judgement and the LGBTQ students feel like they are being given the same opportunity as their peers and that they feel included in the classroom. Unfortunately, whenever issues with LGBTQ students goes unhandled or unnoticed, it leads to many avoidable consequences such as suicide or self-harm.

Reference: Minero, E. (2019, April 19). Schools struggle to support LGBTQ students. Edutopia. Retrieved July 20, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/schools-struggle-support-lgbtq-students

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Citation: Tex. Educ. Code § 1.001-1.002
Link:https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/SDocs/EDUCATIONCODE.pdf

All students that fall under special populations should be provided same opportunities and not be discriminated against for any reason. It is important that schools and districts are providing equal access and opportunity for all students who fall under special populations.

According to the Texas Education Code, all educational institutions including higher education institutions are obligated to provide equal access and opportunity to all students regardless of sex, gender, religion, and origin.

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Citation: U.S. Constitution., amend XIV, § 2

Link: https://uscode.house.gov/

This section of the constitution is part of the Equal Protection Clause in which all students regardless of disability, race, sex, religion, origin are allowed the same opportunities as everyone else and should not be denied anything or should not be discriminated against on the basis of disability, race, sex, origin.

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Citation: Plessy v Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896)

Link: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson

Plessy v Ferguson is a national court case that came to light when there were issues of segregation specifically in an educational setting.

This court case specifically prohibits the discrimination or segregation of students based on specific factors. All students should be afforded the same opportunities without being segregated from the rest of their peers.

This is an important case to uphold in the educational setting because there should be no segregation occurring in the classroom all students attend classes together and have the same opportunities no matter what.

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Background and Context

After the Compromise of 1877 led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, Democrats consolidated control of state legislatures throughout the region, effectively marking the end of Reconstruction.

Southern Black people saw the promise of equality under the law embodied by the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment to the Constitution receding quickly, and a return to disenfranchisement and other disadvantages as white supremacy reasserted itself across the South.

As historian C. Vann Woodward pointed out in a 1964 article about Plessy v. Ferguson, white and Black Southerners mixed relatively freely until the 1880s, when state legislatures passed the first laws requiring railroads to provide separate cars for "Negro" or "colored" passengers.

Florida became the first state to mandate segregated railroad cars in 1887, followed in quick succession by Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and other states by the end of the century.

Black Resistance to Segregation

As Southern Black people witnessed with horror the dawn of the Jim Crow era, members of the Black community in New Orleans decided to mount a resistance.

At the heart of the case that became Plessy v. Ferguson was a law passed in Louisiana in 1890 "providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races." It stipulated that all passenger railways had to provide these separate cars, which should be equal in facilities.

Homer Adolph Plessy, who agreed to be the plaintiff in the case aimed at testing the law's constitutionality, was of mixed race; he described himself as "seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood."

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a ticket on a train from New Orleans bound for Covington, Louisiana, and took a vacant seat in a whites-only car. After refusing to leave the car at the conductor's insistence, he was arrested and jailed.

Convicted by a New Orleans court of violating the 1890 law, Plessy filed a petition against the presiding judge, Hon. John H. Ferguson, claiming that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Supreme Court Ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson

Over the next few years, segregation and Black disenfranchisement picked up pace in the South, and was more than tolerated by the North. Congress defeated a bill that would have given federal protection to elections in 1892, and nullified a number of Reconstruction laws on the books.

Then, on May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Plessy v. Ferguson. In declaring separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads, the Court ruled that the protections of 14th Amendment applied only to political and civil rights (like voting and jury service), not "social rights" (sitting in the railroad car of your choice).

In its ruling, the Court denied that segregated railroad cars for Black people were necessarily inferior. "We consider the underlying fallacy of [Plessy's] argument," Justice Henry Brown wrote, "to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."

John Marshall Harlan's Dissent

Alone in the minority was Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former slaveholder from Kentucky. Harlan had opposed emancipation and civil rights for freed slaves during the Reconstruction era-but changed his position due to his outrage over the actions of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Harlan argued in his dissent that segregation ran counter to the constitutional principle of equality under the law: "The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution," he wrote. "It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds."

Plessy v. Ferguson Significance

The Plessy v. Ferguson verdict enshrined the doctrine of "separate but equal" as a constitutional justification for segregation, ensuring the survival of the Jim Crow South for the next half-century.

Intrastate railroads were among many segregated public facilities the verdict sanctioned; others included buses, hotels, theaters, swimming pools and schools. By the time of the 1899 case Cummings v. Board of Education, even Harlan appeared to agree that segregated public schools did not violate the Constitution.

It would not be until the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, at the dawn of the civil rights movement, that the majority of the Supreme Court would essentially concur with Harlan's opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson..

Writing the majority opinion in that 1954 case, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that "the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place" in public education, calling segregated schools "inherently unequal," and declaring that the plaintiffs in the Brown case were being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment."

Sources

C. Vann Woodward, " Plessy v. Ferguson: The Birth of Jim Crow," American Heritage (Volume 15, Issue 3: April 1964).
Landmark Cases: Plessy v. Ferguson, PBS: The Supreme Court - The First Hundred Years.
Louis Menand, "Brown v. Board of Education and the Limits of Law," The New Yorker (February 12, 2001).
Today in History - May 18: Plessy v. Ferguson, Library of Congress.

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate But Equal Doctrine | HISTORY

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Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.

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Citation: Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681

Link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/03/08/executive-order-on-guaranteeing-an-educational-environment-free-from-discrimination-on-the-basis-of-sex-including-sexual-orientation-or-gender-identity/

In 2021, there was an executive order signed and put into place that protects those who fall under Title IX.

Title IX is a very prevalent and evolving issue that we see on a daily basis and especially in education. In education, we will come across a variety of situations that fall under Title IX and we will continue to see how Title IX grows, changes, and evolves while also learning how to appropriately and effectively handle these situations that we may encounter.

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By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of my Administration that all students should be guaranteed an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex, including discrimination in the form of sexual harassment, which encompasses sexual violence, and including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. For students attending schools and other educational institutions that receive Federal financial assistance, this guarantee is codified, in part, in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq., which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities receiving Federal financial assistance.
Sec. 2. Review of Agency Actions. (a) Within 100 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions (collectively, agency actions) that are or may be inconsistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, and provide the findings of this review to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
(i) As part of the review required under subsection (a) of this section, the Secretary of Education shall review the rule entitled "Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance," 85 Fed. Reg. 30026 (May 19, 2020), and any other agency actions taken pursuant to that rule, for consistency with governing law, including Title IX, and with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order.
(ii) As soon as practicable, and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, the Secretary of Education shall review existing guidance and issue new guidance as needed on the implementation of the rule described in subsection (a)(i) of this section, for consistency with governing law, including Title IX, and with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order.
(iii) The Secretary of Education shall consider suspending, revising, or rescinding - or publishing for notice and comment proposed rules suspending, revising, or rescinding - those agency actions that are inconsistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order as soon as practicable and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, and may issue such requests for information as would facilitate doing so.
(b) The Secretary of Education shall consider taking additional enforcement actions, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to enforce the policy set forth in section 1 of this order as well as legal prohibitions on sex discrimination in the form of sexual harassment, which encompasses sexual violence, to the fullest extent permissible under law; to account for intersecting forms of prohibited discrimination that can affect the availability of resources and support for students who have experienced sex discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race, disability, and national origin; to account for the significant rates at which students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) are subject to sexual harassment, which encompasses sexual violence; to ensure that educational institutions are providing appropriate support for students who have experienced sex discrimination; and to ensure that their school procedures are fair and equitable for all.
Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 8, 2021.

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Executive Order on Guaranteeing an Educational Environment Free from Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Including Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity | The White House

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By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy.

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Katy ISD provides a link to a document about their Title IX district/school policies and the services they provide to those students who fall under the Title IX category and also provides information about Title IX itself.
https://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/594?filename=ffh%28local%29.pdf

The Katy ISD student handbook also provides information about policies prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender, sex, origin, and religion. It also provides information about the policies for harassment and retaliation if it occurs in school.

Katy ISD provides an equal amount of men's and women's activities for both males and females to have the option and opportunity to participate in.

The Katy ISD student handbook also details discipline sanctions regarding Title IX, harassment and retaliation.

Katy ISD Student Handbook: https://www.katyisd.org/cms/lib/TX50010808/Centricity/domain/4/documents/Student_Handbook.pdf

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According to the ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors, students have the right to be respected and treated with dignity and be provided equitable access to a school counseling program that encourages and promotes academic, career, and social and emotional development.

Schools, District, and School Personnel must work to provide a safe environment which is an inclusive and healthy environment that is free from bullying, judgement, abuse of any kind, and discrimination.

Reference:
American School Counselor Association (2016). ASCA Ethical standards for school counselors. American School Counselor Association.
https://www.schoolcounselor.org/About-School-Counseling/Ethical-Legal-Responsibilities/ASCA-Ethical-Standards-for-School-Counselors-(1)

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ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors - American School Counselor Association (ASCA)

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12. Personal Connection to Legal and Ethical Standards

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12. Personal Connection to Legal and Ethical Standards

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Through all of the research I conducted regarding educational equity for LGBTQ students; I have learned a great deal of how all of this connects to mine and my peers educational journey.

Through my experience as a high school special education teacher, that students within the LGBTQ are treated differently and often times discriminated against even though we may not realize or notice it. What I learned is that with the implementation of several laws and clauses that has afforded many people equal access to curriculum and other educational resources and opportunities to educational activities that may not have been afforded to me and several other people that allowed women and many other minority and special populations to participate in the same opportunities as others.

I have also learned that as the laws evolve so is the disciplinary action and consequences of those who do harass and discriminate against others on the basis of sex, origin, religion, or gender.

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1. Providing a safe environment for staff and students that is free from discrimination, harassment, abuse and bullying for any student.

2. Promote and encourage an environment of inclusivity and diversity in which teachers are encouraging inclusivity and diversity in the classroom through their lessons by promoting student acceptance of those who maybe different from them.

3. Schools need to provide equal access and opportunities to all students for sporting and educational activities. They cannot provide one gender or sex more opportunities than the other.

4. All educational staff must uphold and maintain student confidentiality unless it puts the student in immediate danger.

5. All school/district employees should report any abuse, harm, bullying, or discrimination as soon as they hear about it or see signs of it.

6. Disciplinary actions can be administered if the district handbook or policies are violated by students or staff on the basis of bullying, harassment, or discrimination.