ABSTRACT
School leaders who step up for LGBTQ and gender diverse people in schools make a difference in the lives of students. Two studies evaluating the effectiveness of the Massachusetts Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Students (Szalacha, 2003; Griffin & Ouellet, 2002), for instance, found that “the active support of key administrators (i.e., principals, district superintendents and school committees) was crucial to the success of safe schools initiatives,” and that “Unanimously, study participants identified the active support of the school principal as the most important factor that made decisions ‘stick’” (Griffin & Ouellett, 2002, p. 4). The GLSEN School Climate survey (Kosciw, et al., 2016) came to a similar conclusion nationally, noting,
As the leaders of the school, school administrators may play a particularly important role in the school experiences of LGBT youth. They may serve not only as caring adults to whom the youth can turn, but they also set the tone of the school and determine specific policies and programs that may affect the school’s climate.
(p. 56)