Detroit gets first GSA

DETROIT – Nearly a year after Detroit Public Schools CEO Kenneth Burnley gave his blessing to the formation of Gay Straight Alliances in Detroit schools, the first GSA in the city has been formed. But it's not at a public school. The Cesar Chavez Academy in Southwest Detroit, a charter school, has beat the Detroit Public Schools to the punch.
The GSA at Cesar Chavez has been meeting for several weeks and has already made at impact at the school.
"Even though it's still new it's become really active and forceful," said Jonathan Kosila, a 17-year-old senior who helped start the group. "Just a few weeks after we started it we had an event for the National Day of Silence and we had about 130 students and staff participate."
Kosila, who is editor of the school's newspaper, the CCAHS Eagle's Talon, and vice president of the school's student government, says forming the group was just the right thing to do.
"The need was there," said Kosila, who has been accepted to the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, where he plans to study business management in the fall. "In the halls and in the classrooms, I was hearing remarks from other students and I just knew that it would be really helpful."
Kosila said the remarks included "just the usual, faggot, homo, that kind of stuff, and then I realized that a lot of teachers kind of have negative attitudes, too, and they tend to disregard those remarks coming from students. But if it was something else they would stop it."
The goal of the group, who has already formed its mission statement and averages 10-12 students at its weekly meetings, is to educate and enlighten both students and staff.
"We want to get some kind of training for all staff and students teaching tolerance," said Kosila. "We want to have a safer environment. We also discussed educating our peers on healthy relationships. They teach a lot of that stuff for straight couples but not for same-sex couples. So we want to talk about healthy relationships and domestic violence because both of those things need to be addressed."
With the Cesar Chavez GSA in place, local activists are hoping that other schools in Detroit – both charter and public – will follow suit. Several students have tried to start GSAs in the district over the years but have been met with resistance. Burnley called for end to that at a school board meeting on May 19, 2004.
"As it pertains to clubs, any club can be organized if the students have a sponsor at the school," he said. "The bottom line for all of this is a tremendous need for total education. Every single child should come to school free of any concern of harassment of any kind, for any reason, period."