Craig Wheaton, Ed. D., VUSD Superintendent
Craig Wheaton, Superintendent of the Visalia Unified School District, spoke at the March meeting of Tulare-Kings PFLAG.
After 20 – 30 minutes of speaking about Visalia Unified, it’s goals, accomplishments, and his history with the District, Mr. Wheaton opened the floor to questions and comments. He got quite the earful.
Attendees peppered Mr. Wheaton with questions about how to deal with specific issues involving children of gay parents, gay students, bullying, and the presence and absence of GSAs at various campuses across the district.
Brought to his attention were instances of individual schools simply ignoring repeated attempts to initiate discussions with administrators by various groups interested in supporting LGBTQ youth in their schools.
A give-and-take discussion touched on such simple things as a form from the school including signature lines for “mother” and “father”. Notwithstanding the insensitivity to gay parents, Mr. Wheaton was reminded that many children are raised by grandparents or other relatives, and the signature lines simply reinforced stereotypes that do not exist for a large number of children today.
Mr. Wheaton seemed impressed with the issues raised, some of which he admitted he was not aware of, and suggested methods to deal with them, starting with the teacher, and moving up the “chain of command” at the school. He expressed a willingness to receive emails discussing these and other issues, and invited interested parties to contact him if they were not satisfied with the responses they received. Many in the group assured him they would.
I wish PFLAG had been around when I was in school!
It’s odd (to me) to think that Hanford’s schools may now be among the more progressive in the area.