More Gay Teachers Coming Out, But Not Without Controversy

By MARTHA IRVINE

April 12, 1998 12 AM PT

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN LEANDRO, Calif. —

Only the San Francisco Bay separates them. But they may as well be worlds apart.

One, a former high school science teacher in San Leandro, came out as a lesbian to her students during a lesson on tolerance last fall, only to resign amid a flurry of controversy.

“Is this individual ill, seriously insecure, trying to incite problems, or predatory?” parents James and Vicki Godkin wrote in a letter demanding that the school district fire her.

Across the bay in San Francisco, Larry Alegre, a gay assistant principal, was promoted from a teaching position at an elementary school where his sexual orientation is well known.

“Why are you gay?” pupils sometimes ask. “Does your mother know?”

Although he shuns questions that are too personal, Alegre preaches respect and tolerance.

“I tell them that it’s just important that they know that I’m gay and a good person,” says Alegre, who knows he could not have this sort of conversation in most school districts.

There is nothing new about gay and lesbian teachers in the classroom. Although exact numbers aren’t available, authorities say there are probably thousands nationwide.

Most are closeted, often choosing to live and socialize outside the communities where they teach, thus avoiding scrutiny by those who believe that homosexuals should not work with children.

A small but growing number of teachers are, however, coming out--sometimes by directly telling students, more often by simply refusing to edit themselves when talking about their partners.

“All the straight women who are called Mrs. are doing the same thing I did,” says the San Leandro science teacher, who agreed to be interviewed on condition that she not be identified as she searches for a new teaching job.

The revelation is, after all, a risky one.

Kristin Noel, a former Spanish teacher in San Jose, made the decision to tell her students only after she decided to leave teaching in 1995. She calls it “the coward’s way out,” but she could think of no other.

“I was telling my students to be themselves, and I couldn’t be myself. It just ate away at me,” says Noel, now a Silicon Valley software program manager.

A Utah teacher is fighting back with a lawsuit against the school district that has banned her from talking about her sexual orientation, even outside the classroom.

Wendy Weaver, a high school psychology teacher in Spanish Fork, Utah, says she doesn’t discuss her lesbianism at school. But she does show up at public events such as a community ballgame with her partner and their children.

“I just got to the point that it would take more energy to hide it,” says Weaver, who divorced her husband before moving in with her partner.

Weaver lost her volleyball coaching job after administrators heard about her new relationship last summer.

A measure that would create federal protection against job discrimination for lesbians and gay men--the Employment Non-Discrimination Act--may be reconsidered by Congress this year after failing in the Senate by one vote in 1996.

Ten states, including California, have such anti-bias statutes. Maine residents recently voted to drop their state’s protections, underscoring the fact that gay teachers come out at their own risk in most states.

That is especially true in states such as Utah, where sex outside marriage and sodomy are illegal.

“A teacher fired solely because of sexual orientation would have a much stronger case in California than in Utah,” says Darren Hutchinson, a professor of law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Federal free-speech protection under the First Amendment could be cited, he added.

David Buckel, an attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which fights for gay rights, has handled 15 discrimination claims by teachers in the last year. Rather than firing them, citing sexual orientation, districts often find other ways to “make life so awful for the teacher that they can’t bear to stay,” he said.

Buckel points to the case of Gerry Crane, a music teacher in Byron Center, Mich., who had been strongly praised in evaluations but took a severance package in 1996. That was after word got out about his private commitment ceremony with his partner.

“Individuals who espouse homosexuality,” his school board said, “do not constitute proper role models as teachers for students in this district.”

Last year, the 32-year-old teacher died of a heart attack.

Some parents insist they are not anti-gay but simply want teachers to stick to English, math and chemistry, rather than lifestyle lessons.

“San Leandro High has pursued social engineering and has left academics in the background. That may give the teachers a warm, fuzzy feeling, but that doesn’t prepare our kids for college,” says Jeff Lanet, a member of a group that protested the science teacher’s use of class time to come out.

Some cite religious reasons for shielding their children from talk of gay issues.

Mike Trelow, a parent from Alameda, tried unsuccessfully to get teacher Victoria Forrester’s teaching credentials yanked after a student-initiated classroom discussion about the coming-out episode of the “Ellen” TV show last April.

“It’s about respect for the family and sensitivity to a family’s decisions,” says Brad Dacus, Trelow’s attorney.

But some parents sensed something more.

“My personal opinion is, if Miss Forrester were not gay, this parent would not have forced this issue,” says Julie Bonachea, one of several parents rallying around the teacher, who never told her pupils--fifth and sixth graders--that she’s a lesbian.

“My orientation has little to do with what I do in the classroom,” says Forrester.

That does not, however, mean she hides her life. Sometimes her partner, Alissa, even drops by her classroom with their 1-year-old daughter, Quinn. It’s an approach that Bonachea says allows her daughter and other students to absorb the information at their own pace.

“To [my daughter], it’s just matter of fact,” Bonachea says.

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States’ Status

States with nondiscrimination laws that include sexual orientation in list of protections:

California

Connecticut

Hawaii

Massachusetts

Minnesota

New Hampshire

New Jersey

Rhode Island