Harwood school board to review Pride flag request

June 8, 2022  |  By Lisa Scagliotti 

Pride flag. Courtesy photo

The Harwood Unified Union School Board tonight will consider a request to fly the Pride flag at Harwood Union High School for the remaining two days of the school year. 

The request was submitted under the district’s new flag policy adopted in February and updated in May. 

It proposes to fly the flag for the remaining student days in the school year – this Thursday and Friday, June 9-10 – following the board meeting. It also suggests that in the future the flag be flown for student days in June, a national month to acknowledge the LGBTQIA+ community. 

The request was submitted and signed by science and math teacher Elizabeth Gravelle and accompanied by a two-page essay written by a student who identifies as nonbinary detailing painful experiences of harassment and bullying over five years at Harwood Middle and High School. 

The student writes that the gesture, while symbolic, would be in keeping with the school’s mission and goals as stated in the student handbook that stress valuing every individual. 

The new process to get permission to fly a flag other than the U.S. or Vermont state flag requires that the request have the support of a teacher and the school principal where the request is being made. 

Harwood high school English teacher Tedin Lange, a faculty advisor to the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance student group, submitted a letter with the request noting that the club has had 41 members this school year, half of whom attend weekly meetings. Lange explained that the group has worked for three years to have the high school add a gender marker to class attendance lists in the online class scheduling program. It’s also worked with the Mad River Valley Libraries Association and Outright Vermont to host a book discussion and it offered a reading block in the school schedule titled Queer Voices that had 39 students participate. 

“Our LGBTQIA+ students are active members of the school community who have an extended history of promoting a safe and inclusive school environment. Although the majority of their peers are supportive, members continue to face negative comments in public spaces at Harwood,” Lange wrote. “Flying this flag would acknowledge and support this significant group of students.”

Harwood Union High School Co-Principals Laurie Greenberg and Megan McDonough also shared a letter of support for raising the flag, saying that the school “continues to work towards being a school community where all students and staff feel safe - seen, heard, respected and understood,” quoting the first goal for the school in the student handbook. 

The principals acknowledge student efforts this year to specifically consider how those who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community can feel a sense of belonging at the school. “This work has included consideration of how to ensure equity of access to bathrooms and accurate use of pronouns when a substitute is teaching. Flying the Pride flag at Harwood would reflect the continued work of our community to create space where all feel respected,” they write.

The school board’s most recent update to the flag policy request process was to add a requirement that a survey be done in the school where a request is being made and that requests submitted should have at least 51% support of those who respond. 

The survey done for the Pride flag request was distributed by email to Harwood Middle and High School staff and students. It asked whether a Pride flag should be flown on the school flag pole during Pride month. 

According to the flag request application, the survey received 286 responses collected over a two-week period with 250 yes replies (87.4%) and 36 no responses (12.6%).

The student whose essay accompanies the request stresses that flying the Pride flag would be a small first step in a positive direction to show “that the school recognizes queer students instead of pushing them aside and not really doing anything to actively support them.” It would represent the school’s goal by making queer students “feel seen and heard,” and it would build on “work of queer students and supportive faculty to establish safe spaces for themselves such as [the Gender and Sexuality Alliance].”

The school board meets in the library at Harwood Union High School starting at 6 p.m. The meeting is also accessible via Zoom for those who wish to participate and it is live streamed on the school’s YouTube channel, where a recording is available afterward as well. The meeting packet has the agenda with the Zoom link and the background materials for the meeting.