A Defining Leadership Test

School leaders owe it to their LGBTQ+ students to make their schools safe places

Today, school boards and senior leaders face a crucial leadership test—will they fulfill their primary duty to protect all students in their care, write contributors Michael Dodge and Michelle Balch. They argue that when boards avoid explicitly mentioning LGBTQ+ students in policies, retreat from previous commitments, or refuse to speak out publicly when students are targeted, the message is clear: You are on your own.

March 23, 2026

Across the country, LGBTQ+ students are absorbing a clear and troubling message from the adults who govern public life: You are controversial, conditional, and expendable. According to the Trevor Project’s 2024 U.S. National Survey, 39% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including 46% of transgender and nonbinary youth. Legislative efforts to restrict discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, coupled with increasingly hostile public rhetoric, have turned students’ identities into political battlegrounds. 

For those sitting in classrooms, this is not an abstract debate about policy. It is a daily calculation about whether school is still a place where they are safe, seen, and allowed to exist without apology (GLSEN, 2025).

In moments like this, school boards and senior leaders face a defining leadership test. The question is not whether schools should be political. It is whether governing bodies will meet their fundamental responsibility to protect students entrusted to their care.

Neutrality is often framed as restraint or professionalism. In practice, it is rarely experienced that way by students. Silence from governing bodies does not register as balance. It registers as abandonment.

School boards set the boundaries of who is protected, what is tolerated, and whose safety is negotiable. When boards avoid naming LGBTQ+ students explicitly in policy, retreat from previously stated commitments under pressure, or decline to speak publicly when students are targeted, the message students receive is unmistakable: You are on your own.

Supporting LGBTQ+ students begins with governance-level clarity. Boards should ensure that nondiscrimination policies explicitly include sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Vague language is not enough. Specific protections matter because they provide both legal grounding and moral clarity. They also give administrators and staff the backing they need to act when harm occurs.

Boards also must pay close attention to how those policies are enforced. Harassment, bullying, and intimidation directed at LGBTQ+ students cannot be treated as isolated discipline matters handled in private. Boards should receive regular reporting on school climate, student safety trends, and intervention outcomes. 

Visibility also matters. Public statements from boards and superintendents affirming the dignity and safety of LGBTQ+ students are not symbolic gestures. For students who feel erased or targeted, hearing adults in authority say plainly that they belong can be stabilizing and life-affirming (The Trevor Project, 2024). These statements should not be reactive or apologetic. 

They should be grounded in the board’s duty to provide a safe environment for every student. Boards control budgets, priorities, and staffing. Funding student support services, counseling, and mental health resources is essential, particularly when students are navigating fear fueled by external rhetoric and policy debates. 

Policy leaders consistently emphasize that anti-bullying and anti-harassment efforts must explicitly cover sexual orientation and gender identity to be effective—a priority reinforced in the latest GLSEN safe schools’ policy guidance for 2025. Professional development for educators and administrators should include how to respond to bias, how to support gender-diverse students appropriately, and how to intervene when harm occurs. Staff cannot be expected to do this work well without training and institutional backing.

Boards also have a responsibility to protect educators. In many districts, teachers and counselors want to support LGBTQ+ students but fear retaliation, complaints, or professional consequences. Boards must make clear that staff acting within policy to protect students will be supported—not sacrificed—when controversy arises. That assurance often determines whether policies are meaningfully implemented or quietly ignored.

None of this work is easy, and there will be pushback. You should expect accusations of indoctrination, overreach, or political bias. Leadership does not mean avoiding conflict. It means making decisions anchored in student safety, legal obligation, and ethical responsibility, even when those decisions are unpopular.

At its core, public education exists to serve students, not to mirror the loudest voices in the room. LGBTQ+ students are not abstractions in a policy debate. Project SPARK’s longitudinal study explicitly notes that mental health indicators worsened during the same period that anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and targeted legislation were escalating nationwide, suggesting that environmental stressors have real effects on young people’s well-being. These students are children and adolescents trying to learn while being told, implicitly or explicitly, that who they are is unacceptable or invisible. School boards cannot control the broader political environment, but they can control what happens in their schools.

This moment calls for moral courage, not careful distancing. Boards and senior leaders must be willing to say that LGBTQ+ students matter, that their safety is nonnegotiable, and that fear has no place in our classrooms, hallways, or at the board table. Silence may feel safer for adults. For students, it is often the most dangerous response of all.

Michael Dodge (michaeltdodge@gmail.com) is the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and student life and a professor at American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts, serves as a school board member for Greater Commonwealth Virtual School, and is a board trainer for the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. Michelle Balch (mbalch@epsd.us) is superintendent of Easthampton Public School District, Easthampton, Massachusetts.