WORCESTER — A Worcester Public Schools report meant to shed light on bullying of LGBTQ+ students has raised more questions than answers.
The report, presented to the School Committee on April 3, documented 41 incidents of student-on-student conflict in the first half of the school year, with 14 classified as bullying or harassment. Only one of those involved language targeting a student’s gender—and that student was not LGBTQ+, according to the report.
Despite the low numbers, school officials were quick to caution against drawing conclusions, calling the data incomplete and potentially misleading.
“We do think that this data is not an accurate picture of what happens at our schools on a regular basis because it may not be coded as bullying and harassment,” said Superintendent Rachel Monárrez. “It might get coded as something else and students may or may not come forward in terms of what they say they’re being harassed about. This is what our data system shows, but we’re not confident that it shows everything.”
The report was compiled by WPS administrators at the request of School Committee Vice Chair Jermaine Johnson, who called for it in February amid growing concerns about the safety of LGBTQ+ students and staff — particularly those who identify as transgender or gender fluid.
Johnson acknowledged the limitations in how the district collects and categorizes bullying data but emphasized that the report still plays an important role in shaping future policy.
“I think when I actually made this motion,” said Johnson, “there was a comment in regard to data and numbers and that we may not get a true representation of that. I just want to highlight that I’m aware of that due to numerous different factors. I don’t want anyone to think that we’re looking at these numbers and not understanding that there are concerns in our community which rolls into our schools. We do continue to take that serious in regard to the next steps that we’re looking to do.”
The report also recommended several action items, though the School Committee did not discuss them in detail. Proposals include posting “See it, Report it” flyers in schools, increasing staff training on LGBTQ+ support and bullying response, adding a question to the Panorama Survey to track such incidents, strengthening protections for LGBTQ+ students in district policies, and recruiting LGBTQ+ community members for the district’s SAFE Committee.
Public feedback on the report’s contents was limited, but several community members raised concerns about an editing oversight: the omission of the “T” in LGBTQ+ — which stands for transgender — in multiple parts of the report.
Monárrez apologized for the mistake, calling it a “very poorly timed error in editing” that would be corrected, and pledged to “do better.” While both the “T” and the word “transgender” were present elsewhere in the document, the oversight further fueled concerns about how seriously the district is taking the safety of transgender students and staff.
Jason Bleau can be reached at bleau.jason@yahoo.com.
