Editor’s note: CapRadio is not identifying individual schools or using full names in this story for the protection of the students and teachers.
It's the last Rainbow Club meeting before summer break at the Elk Grove Unified School District. And some students between fourth and sixth grade are choosing to spend their lunchtime in a classroom decked out in rainbows and rainbow-colored hearts.
Their teacher Elaine starts the meeting by doing a temperature check of her students’ day.
“Does anyone want to share their roses and thorns today?” she asks, having them describe good thoughts as roses and negative thoughts as thorns.
They share innocuous frustrations about test-taking, broken bones and public speaking. The other students are intently listening until one student asks, “Are we gonna put up anything for Pride this year?”
The class erupts in excitement.
The rainbow clubs in Elk Grove Unified aim to provide safe and supportive spaces for elementary school students, including those that identify as LGBTQIA+ and their allies. But this club and ones like it in the district have been controversial, and the district has faced backlash from community members claiming the clubs and other LGBTQ+ related events are pushing conversions.
But the district’s school board trustee Michael Vargas says though he’s wary of the opposition, administrators have tried to quell concerns while protecting their students — sometimes from their own parents.
“We've seen [the protesters] multiple times,” said Vargas. “They wanted us to punish students for holding a drag show. They wanted us to pull LGBTQ people out of our curriculum. They wanted us to ban LGBTQ books.”
The same group of parents spoke out at an Elk Grove school board meeting in March, saying they weren’t informed about the existence of the rainbow clubs and that the topic wasn’t age appropriate.
Kyle Dixon, a parent in the district, was one such community member speaking out against the club.
“This is a dangerous, divisive tactic that those with nefarious intent often use to exploit children, not protect them,” he said at the meeting. “Secret relationships between teachers and children is grooming.”
He was supported by a number of other Elk Grove parents with the same sentiment. Jed Brown, pastor of the Grace Church in the area, asked about the intent of the club.
“When a teacher or administrator recruits or lures a child into homosexuality or transgenderism, they will say that it is out of love or to keep that student safe,” he said. “But when the teen later on wants their genitalia back, who will be there to support them then?”
And Mary Congdon was unsettled by the material being shared during club sessions.
“It's crucial to evaluate the developmental readiness of our children's young minds for such discussions,” she said, advocating that kindness clubs would be a better use of time.
Currently, lunchtime clubs do not require the same parental consent as after school clubs, said district administrators, and that they are apprehensive of forcibly outing a student as a result of parent consent forms. They also noted that parents have not been informed of other lunchtime clubs outside of Rainbow Club, and those have not prompted the same response. However, they paused the Rainbow Club at Pleasant Grove Elementary to review their policies.
“We do want better communication and more communication with parents around what clubs are available on campus,” said Vargas.
Despite the district’s efforts, the National Center for Law and Policy — a nonprofit law firm which says it “focuses on the protection and promotion of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, parental rights, and other civil liberties” — sent the district a cease and desist letter, demanding it “permanently suspend its UBU and Rainbow clubs in all district elementary schools.”
Rowan Rayneharte is an LGBTQ+ advocate with PFlag Sacramento, an organization which celebrates diversity and provides support to those of every sexual orientation or gender identity. They said the group continues to attend school board meetings to limit the damage the opposition might have on young students.
“Having LGBTQIA clubs on school campuses is crucial and can literally save young lives,” explained Rayneharte.
In Sacramento, a 2022 youth mental health report commissioned by the county concluded that up to 70% of students intersecting with the LGBTQ+ identities were experiencing feelings of hopelessness. Report authors also mentioned that identity focused inclusionary spaces, like the rainbow club, can function as a line of defense.
Club in Elk Grove gets a rainbow-colored bench, which is later destroyed
At the school in Elk Grove, the Rainbow Club was started by an industrious sixth grader who desperately sought an environment where they felt they belonged.
“I wanted to have a place where … if anyone felt that same way that they could come and know that they feel welcomed,” they said. “I thought it was important enough that I needed to say something so that I could be the one to show [other students] that it was okay.”
The club, which started with just one member last year, is now composed of up to 15 students between 10 and 12 years old.
“I joined Rainbow Club because in my outside life, my parents are strict,” one student said about why they joined. “They always talk about who I should marry. It has to be in our religion and they have to be a guy. But personally I think I like to be more free.”
Another student said they joined after learning about it because they thought, “I might be part of it.”
Mostly, the students said they joined to support one another.
“I wanted to help [people at school] understand that this is a safe space for kids to just come and be themselves,” said one student.
They built a rainbow colored bench for that reason, with the idea that it would be a place for students to sit and find companionship — just in time for pride month. The bench and the paint cost nearly $400, which students made by selling shoelaces to people in the community.
A rainbow bench is perched on the playground at an Elk Grove elementary school on Thursday, June 13, 2024. The bench was purchased and built by the school's Rainbow Club.Srishti Prabha/CapRadio
After only three days, the bench was defaced with hate speech and destroyed.
The emotions were heavy in the classroom, and one student described it simply: “I was really sad because we worked really hard to get it.”
Another student quietly admitted that it shifts their perspective on their community: “It was upsetting that people that I might know vandalized it and I might not be friends with those people anymore because of that thing that they did.”
And a third student chimed in with empathy for the people who might have been responsible: “It made me feel bad for them that they have to take time out of their day to make [us] feel bad. They must be going through a really hard time trying to live their life.”
Elaine grappled with the level of transparency she should have with her students.
“I didn't know if I should share with them or not,” she said, ultimately deciding to give them general details without the explicit nature of the hate speech on the bench. “If you identify or if you support people in the LGBTQ+ community, you're going to face people that are full of hate and unkindness, and I thought it was a good lesson.”
Elaine emphasized that the lesson was not to feel defeated, but to rise up stronger in the face of unkindness.
With the help of some parents with children in the club, the bench was repaired, repainted and placed right back on the playground.
Teachers say students lead club curriculum
The role of the teachers and counselors running the Rainbow Club in Elk Grove is a precarious one — they thread the needle between students and their parents.
Nicole, a counselor at an elementary school in the district, offered to run the Rainbow Club when she noticed students on her campus openly identifying as queer.
“We do have to have parents' permission for the students to attend,” she said. “But my primary job as an advisor for the students and a school counselor is to protect [students’] safety and confidentiality.”
Signs made by students in an Elk Grove elementary school Rainbow Club appear on June 13, 2024.Srishti Prabha/CapRadio
Some students have confided in Nicole that their parents don’t accept them, and the one place they feel most safe in expressing their identity is during her Rainbow Club meetings.
“There is a student who is transgender and they have felt that they are in the wrong body since they were in second grade,” she described. “They [were] able to share that with others and their chosen name … Everybody was just applauding, hugging, and it was a beautiful moment.”
These emotional moments are significant, said Nicole, because she is the only adult in some of those students’ lives validating their understanding of the world. During the meeting, she spends time asking the young attendees what questions they have and provides them with age-appropriate information.
“We talked about what Pride meant, where did it start, and Stonewall,” said Nicole, hoping to disabuse the notion that the classroom conversations are insidious. Many times, the meeting time is used for dance parties to songs from the K-pop boy band “Stray Kids,” she added.
“It's so misunderstood,” said Nicole. “It's a beautiful place for students to gather and feel safe and build community. There's nothing bad about what we do in our club.”
And this is not unique to just her Rainbow Club. Elaine echoed that community members are misguided in their understanding of rainbow clubs all over. Her meetings are student-led.
“There isn't any type of conversion going on,” she said. “There is no curriculum. We're not teaching anyone how to be gay.”
An Elk Grove elementary school classroom, which hosts the school's Rainbow Club for LGBTQ+ students and their allies, on Monday, June 10, 2024.Srishti Prabha/CapRadio
Both Elaine and Nicole said they feel a responsibility to both their students and the parents. For them, the dialogue that precedes LGBTQ+ identities is that of kindness and inclusion.
“I want to hear their roses and their thorns,” said Elaine tearfully. “And I hope that there's more roses than thorns in their life.”
Sometimes for LGBTQ+ elementary school students in Elk Grove, the thorns have been from within the community. Yet, teachers and counselors like Elaine and Nicole ensure the district remains committed to supporting students with diverse identities.
Srishti Prabha is an education reporter for CapRadio and Report For America corps member.
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