Lynchburg City Schools in Virginia rejected a $10,000 grant from the It Gets Better Foundation after the award received backlash from community members. The board voted 7-2 in favor of not accepting the grant.
“Let me be very clear,” a grandparent of a student said during the board meeting. “The LBGTQ agenda in schools is about indoctrination and grooming our children into an evil and wicked lifestyle, all while circumventing the rights and responsibilities of parents.
The It Gets Better Foundation awarded the money for students at a Lynchburg high school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) club to create a “quiet room” for students with sensory sensitivities. The proposed room would include white noise machines, sensory friendly lighting, flexible seating and more.
Other schools across the district have similar spaces, with E.C. Glass Principal Daniel Rule telling the board the sensory rooms have “been shown to promote student self-regulation and are correlated to better student outcomes.”
“Many students, including myself, struggle with mental health,” high school junior Lindley Crosby offered. “School can be overwhelming just by itself, but a lot has happened in the last three or four years, what with the uncertainty of COVID along with the many lockdowns and how those have affected students.”
School board members, however, were wary of the association the grant has with a LGBTQ+ organization. One of the board members, Christian DePaul, offered his “research” into the It Gets Better Foundation for the public.
“My point is, and there’s other people on the board who have this opinion, I believe, that this is a group I don’t think should be associated with LCS,” he said. “I cannot support that project with all the things that I’ve seen on their website. I cannot do it.”
The mission statement of the foundation, which is found on its website, states the organization works to “communicate to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth around the world that it gets better, and to create and inspire the changes needed to make it better for them.”
Board members also took issue with some of the requirements for the grant, which included signage indicating It Gets Better sponsored the construction of the “quiet room.” The board elected to match the grant from funds within the district’s operating budget, as they did acknowledge there was a need for a sensory-friendly space.
“The kids need it,” school board chair Atul Gupta said. “Let’s get it done and move on.” Despite Gupta’s sentiments, the Virginia school board maintained their 7-2 rejection of the $10,000 grant from It Gets Better.