Considering Multiple Perspectives
To facilitate practice and competence with the aforementioned strategies, universities may consider hosting an LGBT workshop (Cisler & Bruce, 2012) that brings not only future school counselors and principals together, but current professionals from local school districts and community-based LGBT organizations. As such, students and faculty from school counseling and educational leadership departments could discuss their shared obligations and prospective roles to ensure that school is a safe place for LGBT students. As a result, trust, respect, and a shared vision for the success of all student populations, including LGBT youth, may be more realized.
Counselor educators could also provide a case example during this workshop, such as one that was recently published in the July/August 2014 edition of ASCA's School Counselor magazine:
Two female students were making out in the hallway. Your principal brought the two girls to his office and called their parents and explained the student code of conduct violation and told the parents the gender of the student with whom their daughter was engaged in a public display of affection. (Stone, 2014, p. 6)
As a follow-up to this example, faculty from both the school counseling and educational leadership departments should engage participants in reflective dialogue and perspective-taking from the lenses of both a school counselor advocate and principal. Sample questions may include: (a) What were your initial reactions to this scenario?; (b) What do you think the principal and school counselor were thinking about or feeling in that moment?; (b) What impact did the reprimand have on the two female students?; (c) How might the school counselor and principal work together to resolve this dilemma?; and (d) What types of conversations could be beneficial to the school counselor-principal relationship to avoid a potential clash? Counselor educators should also allow ample time to debrief this experience with workshop participants.