Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Proposal to the Pride Foundation
to support Seattle Public Schools sexual education program, FLASH, in partner with Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN)


Contact Information

Seattle Public Schools
John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence (JSCEE)

2445 3rd Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98134
Phone: 206.252.0000

Contact Person: Alexander LaCasse, public school advocate and GLSEN member

Brief Description of Organization

What is now called GLSEN initially started out as a group of 70 gay and lesbian educators as the Gay and Lesbian Independent School Teachers Network in 1990. At its genesis, the country had two recognized Gay-Straight Alliances as well as one state that had policy in place to protect LGBT students. It was not until 1995 that the organization made its national debut. Chapters across the country began to quickly crop up. Today GLSEN staffs 40 individuals, has a board of 20 and has registered nearly 4,000 Gay-Straight Alliances around the country.
GLSEN strives to create an atmosphere of acceptance of others through education, ensuring that all students are safe in their schools regardless of sexual orientation. The mission was established early on and states that GLSEN “envisions a world in which every child learns to accept and respect all people, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.”
GLSEN works collaboratively with state legislature and and school districts in order to address the issues surrounding the young gay and lesbian population. The vision of GLSEN can be broken into four categories:
1.Convince education leaders and policymakers of the urgent need to address anti-LGBT behavior and bias in our schools.
2.Protect students by advancing comprehensive and effective safe schools law and policies.
3.Empower principals to make their schools safe places to learn.
4.Build the skills of educators to teach respect for all people.
Seattle Public Schools, a publicly funded entity, understand and respects GLSEN's efforts to create a more cohesive and accepting atmosphere for all of its students.

5 comments:

  1. It seems as we discussed, the audience would be honorable yet ambiguous. You fully explain the importance of the GLSEN group and how it fits into the Pride foundation's work. The difficult part would be to have them change their grant money over into the public educational aspect from their usual scholarship contributions. Showing how a new form of public school sexual education would promote gay and lesbian performance in schools or the furthering of the public's understanding and education of alternative sexual orientations would be the most beneficial for your appeal for the grant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. These ideas would resonate especially well with people who identify as LGBT and the organizations/foundations that work to further their rights (such as the Pride Foundation).

    ReplyDelete
  3. The genre (grant proposal) is an appropriate way to address the problems and solutions for the LGBT community and larger public in general. In targeting gay-rights organizations like the Pride Foundation, the audience would be sympathetic making it easier to connect with and persuade the organization for the grant money. By showing how the proposal works in connection with the overall purpose of the Pride Foundation, you make a strong argument.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is a good intro to how GLSEN and its work ties to a new proposal of FLASH education. Although most of the public is probably unaware of new sexual orientation initiatives, organizations for LGBT rights would probably be more informed on the topic. Thus they would probably need less background info that the average person. The Pride Foundation would likely want to hear more of the specifics that you propose in sex education and any differences that yours has compared to others. And how this is an important addition to their other various areas of funding...

    ReplyDelete
  5. At this point your grant proposal has a good start :)

    ReplyDelete