Gay student says he was harrassed

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Officials for the Gallup-McKinley County School District last week handled what they called the district's first case of harassment against a gay student in recent years.

The 15-year-old student at Gallup Junior High told school officials that several other male students harassed him repeatedly during a class the week before, calling him names and throwing paper and other objects at him.

The student, who was open about being gay, said he had been called names before and had not reported it; however, this incident escalated into something more, and he felt he needed to report it to authorities.

"This was just typical teenage behavior," said Frank Chiapetti, the school's principal, who added that he agreed that the incident was not typical.

"I had seen nothing to this degree before," he said.

Being openly gay in junior high is in itself somewhat unusual, said school officials. Usually, students and especially male students spend their early teenage years assessing their sexual orientation and keep it private because of possible harassment from other students.

Karen White, superintendent of the school district, said harassment of gays in the school district is not a problem the district faces very often.

"This is the first case in my four years as superintendent," she said.

Chiapetti said, for the most part, he felt that the student body at his school was "accepting and open" toward a student who was gay.

The district has policies dealing with bullies and those who commit sexual harassment and the policy was followed in this case, said Chiapetti.

The sexual harassment policy requires that the students who had committed the harassment be referred to counseling. The principal also has the right to give the perpetrators up to three days of suspension.

If the incident could be labeled as severe or if there was violence involved, the principal has the right to turn the matter over to law enforcement.

But Chiapetti said he didn't see any violence; so it stayed at the first level.

He said he couldn't go into details on what punishment was given to the students except to say that school board policy was followed.

The student who was harassed said that he was told that one of the students had been suspended and the other two were allowed to stay in school.

The student who was suspended had been on a contract, he said.

The district puts students who have been in trouble repeatedly on contract after telling them if they violate any school rules in the future, they will be suspended.