It is our pleasure to announce that the Safe Schools Project of Santa Cruz County has been awarded a grant from the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. The purpose of the grant is to develop and implement a Safe Schools Index (SSI) for county schools in Santa Cruz County to guide school administrators in providing sustainable policies, practices and strategies that will result in safer and more inclusive school climates for LGBTQ students. We submitted this grant after hearing about this need from many school administrators across the county and we want to create a useable instrument in partnership with elementary, middle and high schools.
The first phase of the grant (Jan-March) is developing the instrument (currently we are calling this a “Safe Schools Index”) with a committee of administrators and convening small focus groups of administrators about the instrument. The second phase of the grant (March-May) is field-testing the instrument.
We hope that all school districts and administrators will participate by convening a focus group and by identifying administrators to be part of the SSI development committee. Please email Rob Darrow of your interest (RobDarrow@Robdarrow.us) by December 19.
Here is the Letter Sent to County Superintendents via email on December 8.