Facilitators for the Welcoming Schools program in the Cape Henlopen School District hosted a community event at CAMP Rehoboth Feb. 18.

More than 20 educators and community members attended the event that highlighted the program’s mission and the resources it offers.

“We know that the word inclusion right now is, to some people, a dirty word, but we don’t believe that,” said Dr. Michael Young, Cape’s supervisor of secondary education and one of the district’s two Welcoming Schools facilitators. “We believe that all students belong, and should be supported and feel safe.”

Welcoming Schools, which was developed by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in the early 2000s, aims to prevent bias-based bullying in schools in the U.S. and around the world, and to foster more inclusive school environments for students of all sexualities and genders, including those who are nonbinary or transgender. It provides educators and other youth-serving professionals with LGBTQ+ and gender-inclusive professional development training, lesson plans, booklists and other resources.

“It’s always been the job of the educator to address disrespectful comments,” said Amanda Archambault, Cape’s supervisor of elementary education and the other program facilitator. “But derogatory words used to put down LGBTQ+ people have been some of the most difficult comments to address because educators didn’t know how to respond, especially in an elementary school setting.”

The training has proven very effective in addressing that challenge. The percentage of educators who reported feeling equipped with the skills and knowledge to adequately support students in the LGBTQ+ community more than doubled after receiving Welcoming Schools training, from only 42% before the training to 88% after.

According to Kim Leisey, executive director of CAMP Rehoboth, “The thing about the Welcoming Schools program that I deeply appreciate is that it is skills-based, so teachers have the skills then to figure out, ‘How do I intervene? What do I say?’ Versus just saying, ‘This is unacceptable. This doesn’t happen in our school. We’re against this.’ Oftentimes, those skills aren’t taught in college teacher prep programs.”

Beth Nevill, who taught in the Cape district for many years, highlighted the value of the program’s top-down approach.

According to Nevill, there are quite a number of LGBTQ+ staff members who previously stayed quiet about their identities out of fear that they wouldn’t be supported by their colleagues or higher-ups when trying to intervene in situations of bullying against LGBTQ+ students.

That changed the day the superintendent stood and proclaimed his support for the staff.

“As a former staff member, and as a gay person on staff, what really got this started was having the administration of the district say, ‘We have your backs,’” Nevill said. “That day, I was able to step forward in front of the staff and say, ‘We’re going to do something.’ And it really caught fire.”

While the district has been collaborating with the Human Rights Campaign and working to provide LGBTQ+ and gender support for several years, this is its first year implementing the Welcoming Schools approach.

The Welcoming Schools program has reached all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., and beyond, and its Fiscal Year 2023 annual report found that in 2023 alone, its training impacted more than 600,000 students.

Cape is the first school district in Delaware to adopt the program. 

While Archambault and Young are currently Cape’s only trained facilitators, many more staff and board members will receive training. Each school in the district also has a primary and secondary gender support liaison, specifically trained staff members who can offer additional support for LGBTQ+ students and work with them to develop gender support plans. 

The Welcoming Schools training comprises six modules: embracing all families; creating gender-inclusive schools; creating LGBTQ+-inclusive schools; intersectionality; supporting transgender and nonbinary students; and preventing bias-based bullying. 

The modules and lesson plans vary slightly depending on the grade level the trainee teaches.

“When we’re talking about bias-based bullying to kindergarteners, it might be more of a sports analogy, or somebody who likes to wear pink pants, for example,” Archambault said. “We really try to make sure things are age-appropriate for children and part of their everyday.” 

The modules include role play scenarios for trainees to learn how to navigate various situations and address seemingly small – but still important – concepts like grouping students in the classroom in ways other than by gender.

“We talk to teachers about how to [group] differently to support all kids, so that they don’t have to make a choice,” Young said. “If you’re saying, ‘Boys are here, and girls are there,’ and you have a kid who’s like, ‘I don’t really know, right now, where I fit, because this is what I am, and this is what people perceive me to be,’ then it becomes a whole thing. We’re not going to do that to a kid.”

Teachers may instead group by numbered pairs or other more inclusive units. 

Similarly, the district has started hosting events like Donuts with Grown-Ups and Cookies with Caregivers in place of the traditional gendered Donuts with Dads or Muffins with Moms to promote inclusivity of all families and students. 

“It is our mission to make sure everybody in our buildings, from custodians to secretaries to parents to teachers, has the capacity to discern decisions and conversations in support of children so they are safe and affirmed every day at school,” Archambault said.