Alternative
education offers acceptance
By
Richard Ables
On-line Forty-Niner
Nestled
inside the sanctity of the First United
Methodist Church on the outskirts of downtown
Long Beach, teacher Sandy Miller provides
a safe, supportive learning environment
for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender
and questioning youths. Miller, a gentle
natured man with a calling for education,
has been running the O.A.S.I.S. program,
Out Adolescents Staying in School, for eight
years with the help of volunteers and donations
from the local community.
“We’re
here to lift the burden off students’
shoulder,” Miller said. “For
a lot of them, this is the only safe way
for them to get an education.”
Many
of the students that come to O.A.S.I.S.
are referred by school counselors and therapists.
Being a part of the Los Angeles Unified
School District, the school’s students
come from all around the South Los Angeles
area, sometimes spending hours on public
transportation to get there. If they want
to come from locations outside of the school
district, Miller usually arranges for special
permits.
In
a school district that suffers from a mere
68.4 percent high school graduation rate
(18.2 percent below the state average),
Miller said he is doing all he can to help
at-risk students.
The
atmosphere of the school is quite casual.
Teenagers sit around a large conference
table in the dining room-auditorium-recreation
center that is actually smaller than most
public school classrooms and eat their sandwiches,
which have been donated from a local restaurant.
As a side dish, Miller cooks up some macaroni
and cheese for the kids in the makeshift
kitchen the school has.
“Mmm,
carbs,” one of the teens said.
Jokes
are whispered from a mouth with a pierced
lip into an ear draped with multicolored
hair. Across the hall is the library-classroom-computer
lab-principle’s office where the students
work on projects at their own pace. There
are no cliques at this school. Everyone
interacts with everyone else.
O.A.S.I.S.
is a small continuation school of only 13
students, covering grades nine through 12
with its old schoolhouse charm. As a branch
of the Central High School of the Los Angeles
Unified School district, it follows the
state’s guidelines for education like
any other school does. It even has physical
education, which the students jokingly refer
to as “P.E. lite,” consisting
of games like badminton and foursquare.
“It’s
like regular high school — but we’re
all really gay,” jokes Michael Arbizo,
a student in the program. “We’re
like ‘hey girl.’”
“That’s
right girl,” shouted a young man from
the back of the classroom in agreement.
Arbizo,
a talkative boy with spiky hair and worn
out sneakers, comes from what he describes
as a troubled home. His parents had not
been supportive of him coming out and had
made it clear that he wasn’t allowed
in their house anymore. This is Arbizo’s
second time taking classes at the school.
He was forced to drop out for a while so
that he could work full time when his parents
informed him that he had worn out his welcome
at home.
Since
many of the school’s students have
troubled home lives, O.A.S.I.S. offers drug
and alcohol counseling among the wide range
of services it provides. Helping students
come out to their parents and teaching them
how to deal with unaccepting family members
is a commonplace for Miller, but “it’s
not [his] job to ‘out’ students
to their parents,” he makes clear.
“Group
writings, guest speakers and discussions
on self-esteem are only a few of the resources
we offer to our kids,” Miller said.
“We go on a variety of different field
trips and set up internships for the kids
in the local community so they can learn
from real-life experiences.”
Students
can earn course credit for working at coffeehouses,
as pet groomers, at non-profit agencies
and at the local gay and lesbian playhouse
like Arbizo.
Periodically,
volunteers from the local community come
to the school to talk to the kids and teach
them new skills. Once a week, Cory Johnson,
a Cal State Long Beach professor, spends
an hour with the students, acting somewhat
like a guidance counselor as he reviews
their progress and discusses plans for their
futures. He said he tries to match students’
interests with what options are available
to them after high school, pushing the idea
of college as much as possible.
“We
try to transfer some of these life skills
into their curriculum,” Johnson said.
His
love of children shines through as he patiently
asks questions to his classroom of teenagers
who are, at least for the moment, more interested
in the holiday candy he has brought than
the advice he’s trying to give them.
O.A.S.I.S.
has managed to dodge the controversial spotlight
that has plagued the recent opening of the
Harvey Milk School in New York by remaining
small and keeping out of the public’s
eye. As Miller knows all too well, having
a public school geared toward queer youth
begs the question of segregation.
The
students at O.A.S.I.S. “have already
been segregated,” Miller said, explaining
that the kids wouldn’t be in the program
if things were OK in their traditional schools.
“We’re trying to make them whole
again so that when they leave here they
can feel comfortable dealing with what’s
out there.”
While
O.A.S.I.S. serves a primarily gay student
base, it doesn’t discriminate against
any youth that wishes to join the program.
“The
only prerequisite is a willingness to work
cooperatively with others in a tolerant
manner,” Miller said.
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