The Human Rights Campaign's LGBTQ & DEI 'Welcoming Schools' Program Is Gaining Momentum In Public Schools
Protecting our children is a 24/7 job, and we can no longer trust that our children are not being exposed to such material. Do not be complacent.
While researching the Human Rights Campaign, I ran across something I’ve never heard of and something I don’t recall ever hearing anyone mention, Welcoming Schools. Welcoming Schools, according to their official website, was originally the idea of Pam Garramone of the Greater Boston PFLAG, who in 2004 gathered “a group of community members, including an elementary school principal, a social worker, educators, LGBTQ+ parents, safe schools trainers, and a social-emotional program consultant, to examine how LGBTQ+ topics affected elementary students.”
Using the same dark blue and yellow imagery that the HRC is known for, the Welcoming Schools logo is a yellow school bus, on a dark blue background with the progress pride flag colors aligning the front of the bus as if to illustrate a road leading into the future.
Their site states “Students of color and LGBTQ students are more likely to be disciplined than their white, non-LGBTQ peers. Students with intersectional identities, such as Black transgender youth or gay undocumented youth, are at an even greater risk.” This statement is backed up by different surveys, the newest of which is from 2014. In other words, old studies.
In 2005, the HRC became the HRC Foundation. This foundation focused primarily on “a public education and outreach component to increase understanding of LGBTQ+ people and the importance of LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices.”
“Ellen Kahn, while working to build the HRC Foundation’s Children, Youth, and Families program, was eager to develop a program to help elementary schools support children with LGBTQ+ parents. Ellen organized a meeting of experts from across the country, including Kathy Pillsbury, who was part of the Boston group leading Welcoming Schools. It quickly became clear that Welcoming Schools would be a perfect addition to the program. In 2006, the volunteers who developed Welcoming Schools transferred ownership from Greater Boston PFLAG and GLSEN Boston to the HRC Foundation,” their website states.
Twelve schools were chosen to pilot the Welcoming Schools program in 2008, which later expanded to offering books, and lesson plans on their website in 2010, free of cost.
ABC 7 NEWS- WJLA ran a story in 2013 about one Washington D.C. elementary school, Cleveland Elementary, where the Welcoming School’s 12-minute documentary premiered. What’s interesting about this news clip is the focus on bullying. Not one mention of inclusivity of any kind, and certainly not a word about LGBTQ students.
During the HRC’s Welcoming Schools Presents at Time to THRIVE held in 2016, speakers used terms such as “extremists” and “twisted” to describe the pushback they received from those who opposed their children being taught the Welcoming Schools program. This ended up being more of a marketing campaign for indoctrination, as each speaker discussed how crucial it was to have the book “I Am Jazz” read in schools and public libraries to children of all ages. The co-author of the book also took a moment to explain how she used her children, the youngest being 4 years old, to expose them to the idea of transgenderism. Her experiment was to see if a book about Jazz Jennings’ transition would be well received by a child that young. At the end of the discussion, they wheel out Jazz Jennings to thank everyone for signing up for an opportunity to read “I Am Jazz” in their classrooms. Jennings spoke for less than two minutes, thanking the crowd before walking offstage.
