school

When bullying endangers students or causes them to drop out, advocates say programs like Q High can keep children safe and on track academically.

When Kailee Hernandez told her friends at Central High School last year that she's gay, things changed between them.

Girls she was once close to mocked the then-sophomore, acting as if she was hitting on them. When she entered a classroom, they sometimes just stared at her.

Kailee, 15, dropped out before the school year was over.

This fall, she is back in class, at Q High, one of a handful of programs or schools across the country for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths that offers high-school courses and other activities in what its founders call a harassment-free environment. Read more »

Linda Harvey of the Christian group Mission: America said she wants kids to know that bullying is wrong. She also wants them to know that "something called gay" is wrong too.

In her new guide on how to talk to kids about homosexuality, Harvey writes, "It's not right to tell someone that being homosexual is okay. The person may be feeling sad because of being bullied, but never try to make him or [sic] feel better by saying "gay" is okay."

The guide compares being gay to overeating: Read more »

Four seventh-grade boys from upstate New York who were caught on video mercilessly taunting a 68-year-old bus monitor have received their punishment.

The school system in the Rochester suburb of Greece says it will suspend the middle school students from school and from using regular bus transportation for a year for bullying Karen Klein.

The students will be transferred to a special alternative education program because the district is legally required to give the students an education. Each student will also be required to complete 50 hours of community service with senior citizens.

They will be able to reapply to middle school after they complete the discipline. Read more »

She first insisted she was a boy at the age of 2. "I am a boy" became a constant theme in struggles over clothing, bathing, swimming, eating, playing. Eventually, a psychologist diagnosed gender identity disorder. Now Tyler 's parents allow him to live as a boy, and the 5-year-old is reveling in his new identity. (The Post is using the name his parents would have given him if he had been born a boy to protect the family's identity outside their community, where their situation already is widely known.) (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post) Read more »