Nov 05
There are millions of Indigenous peoples worldwide, and amongst those numbers are thousands of different cultures that make each and every tribe unique. Before we learn how to celebrate Indigenous heritage, let’s begin with the term Indigenous and its meaning. According to the Oxford dictionary, Indigenous means originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; …
Jun 08
It’s no secret that if our youth are in a safe, supporting, and nurturing environment, they are more likely to thrive. Unfortunately, our LGBTQ youth are not always in that environment. In a study done by The Trevor Project, LGBTQ youth were more than 4x likely to attempt suicide because of negative treatment and unsafe …
May 10
With everything that has happened in the past two years, it is no secret that the mental health of our youth is important. There are a variety of ways to support youth mental health: from counseling and therapy to self-care techniques and simply listening and spending time with them. Another vital strategy that can help …
May 09
There seems to be an attack on the LGBTQ community in recent years, especially on our already vulnerable LGBTQ youth. I wish I was exaggerating, but an article published by the Human Rights Campaign last year declared that “2021 Officially Became the Worst Year in Recent History for LGBTQ State Legislative Attacks,” stating that more than 250 …
Apr 08
Annually, April 8th honors the LGBTQ+ students who are regularly silenced in the classroom. Their stories and authenticity are stifled by anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation that too often infiltrates the public school curriculum. Recently, the Florida government signed into law their “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” This bill prohibits teachers from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation …
Mar 30
What is the Minority Stress Effect? The Minority Stress Effect is a model used to assess how the dominant group’s values stack up and affect the minority groups’ values. In our society, the dominant discourse is white, heterosexual and male. This means that in the United States, the “norm” is centered around those people, what makes them …
Mar 28
LGBTQIA+ HISTORY DEBUNKED “Being gay is new,” “No one was gay when I was young,” these are things we have heard in recent years as the number of out and proud youth increases. While the people saying these things may think being part of the LGBTQ+ community is new, the wide spectrum of sexuality has …
Aug 16
August 2021 marks the return to school for the majority of students across the U.S. For most school districts, this means in-person learning, and for some, this will be their first offline learning experience in 18 months. The progress in protections from COVID-19 through vaccines, social distancing measures, and other safety protocols has recently been …
Jun 22
School closures at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic presented school districts with a unique dilemma: how to get school meals to children when they can’t physically attend school. According to the USDA, schools were responsible for feeding over 29 million students each day before the pandemic, and studies have shown that many children receive …
Jun 04
In the U.S. education system, education and child nutrition are closely tied. Many families and students depend on school meals to not go hungry and help meet nutritional needs. Especially in areas of high poverty with high proportions of students of color, school meals help to address inequity in food security. With the onset of the pandemic, …
