Does It Get Better in Small Schools?

My high school was a small oasis in a largely Republican borough in a largely Democrat city in a mixed state that typically comes up blue. When I say small, I mean that my graduating class consisted of 117 students (after 3 girls became pregnant and either transferred or dropped out). In total, the school consisted of around 500 students. We did not even have our own building, and instead shared it with three other schools, each relegated to their own wing and sharing areas such as the gym, auditorium, and lunch room.

Because of this, getting high involvement rates for any after school event was always difficult. During my freshman year, I started a writing club. While we started with 10 or so members, a mix of clashing schedules and high school drama soon made that number dwindle down to 3. During my junior year, a friend became interested in creating an LGBT+ club, which he named the It Gets Better Club, after the movement of the same name that was popular at the time. While he initially had twenty or so people come to the first meeting, this number too quickly dwindled.

I joined the club towards the end of the year, after realizing that my own club was beyond saving. What I found when I walked through the door on my first day was a club that was unsure of its own identity. The few members we had were devoted, but unsure of what to do with that devotion. We spent our days planning events that few attended and talking about goals we would never accomplish.

The following year, a friend and I took over the club as co-presidents and went to work to try to make the club, and all it stood for, grow. After a talk with our principal, we expanded our focus from LGBT issues to a more inclusive, anti-bullying stance. Once the conversion was complete, however, our principal had one question for us: “But where can the LGBT students go now?” This, despite the fact that it was under his suggestion that we shifted gears to begin with.  The answer was still the It Gets Better Club, but perhaps from the outside it was not an obvious one. In our quest for regular and significant attendance, we had once again lost track of our mission.

A year after I graduated the teacher who oversaw the club left the school, as did most of the remaining members. Unable to gain new interest, the club ceased to exit. In a recent visit to the school, I learned that a new Gay-Straight Alliance has formed, but they too face the same issues. With most of the founding members getting ready to graduate, the club’s fate is uncertain. In a school that was fairly accepting, with a significant number of queer identified students, two attempts at creating a queer space have failed, both times for lack of members. I am forced to question if it is possible to create a queer space in a small school. Even as it becomes increasingly acceptable to be queer (an argument that some may question the validity of), this acceptance does not seem to be resulting in change in the structure of small schools.