Am I Included?

Developing a systematic way of promoting the inclusion of members of the LGBTQIA+ community in our cultural, curricular and programmatic practices school-wide.

Jermaine Cameron • Cahn Fellow 2021

As the sixth of the first network of all-boys schools within the New York City Department of Education, we have often assumed that the growth of our school will be contingent upon our instructional planning, execution and the overall progress that our scholars make over time. However, as our school grew over the years, we realized that while we have seen growth in certain areas of our scholars, our overall school culture did not intentionally make moves to include all those who would be part of our growing community. Since 2017, conversations with our school counselors regarding ensuring representation of our scholars started. These conversations were primarily around inclusivity, beyond the uniform requirement and beyond our single-gender population. However, we needed to take a closer look at our slow but steady population of LGBTQ scholars and how they are represented and supported within our school community.

Am I Included? Serves to uncover the resistance to acknowledge the latent stereotypes regarding the profiles of the scholars who enroll in our small, yet growing school. Many often assume that a single-gender school serving a particular demographic will only attract young men with an affinity to sports. However, as the founding leader of the school, I have realized personally and within my own leadership practice that very little was done to address to growing number of scholars who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community.