The Safe Place to Learn report was mentioned in a story by Anne Ternus-Bellamy in the Davis Enterprise last night.

From the article:

According to the 'Safe Place to Learn' report published in 2004, 'students whose schools have a gay-straight alliance or similar student club felt safer at school, reported safer school climates in general, and were less likely to be harassed based on actual or perceived sexual orientation.'

The report, published by the California Safe Schools Coalition and the 4-H Center for Youth Development at UC Davis, found that was the case whether students belonged to the club or not.

That's not to say, however, that harassment doesn't still exist.

The most recent California Healthy Kids Survey, which asked seventh-, ninth- and 11th-graders if they had been harassed at school in the last year, because they were gay or lesbian or someone thought they were, found between 3 and 7 percent of respondents had been harassed one or more times.

Numbers for the Davis Joint Unified School District were slightly higher at some grade levels - 9 percent of ninth graders said they had been harassed two or more times in the preceding year - slightly lower in others.