Here’s what we wanted to know: Are Morgan Hill Unified School
District employees currently trained how to handle incidents of
harassment, particularly regarding sexual orientation
complaints?
Here’s what we wanted to know: Are Morgan Hill Unified School District employees currently trained how to handle incidents of harassment, particularly regarding sexual orientation complaints?
The my-lawyer-said-I-can’t-comment response of Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Carolyn McKennan to this reasonable question is patently ridiculous. School Board President Tom Kinoshita also refused to answer the question.
Shame on them.
Six former middle and high school students have filed a lawsuit accusing district staff of failing to protect them from gay bashing at school.
Whether or not the allegations are true, the fact that they have been made – bolstered by a judge’s ruling that there’s enough substance for the case to go forward – makes asking what the district does now about gay bashing a legitimate and pressing question.
We don’t expect McKennan and Kinoshita to necessarily comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, but, besides being manifestly ludicrous, it’s arguably reckless to claim that telling parents, students and the media about the district’s current sexual harassment training for its employees could affect this five-year-old lawsuit.
Refusal to answer the question is a failure of the district’s duty to district families who entrust their children to MHUSD’s care for several hours a day. Parents of all children – gay, straight, brown, white or black – need to know that the district will not tolerate serious harassment of any kind. It’s a matter of respect.
How, specifically, the district trains its employees to deal with it when it occurs is clearly the public’s business.
But for sheer arrogance, it’s hard to beat the leadership of the Morgan Hill school district.
Given the shocking nature of the plaintiffs’ allegations regarding treatment by fellow students – and the equally troubling allegations of district staff’s mishandling of the situations – parents have reason to be concerned.
The kind of behavior alleged in the students’ lawsuit would not be tolerated at any business in America. At the vast majority of companies, supervisors and managers are trained to deal sensitively and swiftly with incidents of harassment. It’s reasonable and responsible for parents to learn if the district follows this lawful standard.
Parents need to know, and the district has a responsibility to communicate, what training staff members – from yard duty monitors to coaches, from teachers to administrators – undergo regarding harassment of any kind, including harassment targeted at gay students.
Students and parents need to know what rules about gay bashing are in place – from the consequences for calling someone a hateful epithet based on their sexual orientation and beyond – and how and when those rules are communicated to students and staff.
Anything less is a shameful shirking of duty to our children in favor of self-protection.
The community should not tolerate that.
