Minnesota’s largest school district should do more to protect GLBT students

Some parents and students at the Anoka-Hennepin school district believe the neutral policy toward GLBT students encourages mistreatment of such students and discourages teachers from intervening to help them. The suicides of five district students and two others with connections to the district over the past year lent an urgency to their advocacy, they said. “Four of those students faced harassment and bullying based on their perceived GLBT orientation,” said Robin Mavis, a spokeswoman for the Anoka-Hennepin Gay Equity Team, who described herself as a “wife, mother and representative of the Anoka-Hennepin school district.” Tammy Aaberg, whose gay 15-year-old son committed suicide this past summer, faulted the district for not doing enough to keep him from being bullied.