Support the Safe Schools Improvement Act (H.R. 2262)

Last month the Safe Schools Improvement Act (H.R. 2262) was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor. It is my hope that you will do the right thing and support this essential piece of legislation that will help make schools safer for all students regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.

H.R. 2262 would require schools that receive Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act funding to implement comprehensive anti-bullying policies that enumerate categories often targeted by bullies, including race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression and others.

Up until this point we have failed our students and young people by allowing anti-LGBT bullying to go unfettered and unchecked. The most recent result of our negligence to respond collectively and proactively to this endemic problem has been the loss of two young lives this past April. Within just two weeks this spring, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Springfield, MA, and Jaheem Herrera of DeKalb, GA, returned from school with broken spirits and hanged themselves following relentless bullying and anti-LGBT taunts. These were just the reported cases -- thousands more suffer silently.

Yours sincerely,