A student club’s proposal to establish a quiet room at a Lynchburg school is slated to become reality, thanks to donations from the public.
About $5,000 has been raised to set up a calming room at E.C. Glass High School via the school division’s education foundation and a student-run Go Fund Me page.
The project would have been funded by a $10,000 grant won by the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, but the school board rejected that award in November.
“The outpouring of support has been amazing,” said Chester Lobb, a senior at Glass who serves as co-president of the alliance. But he’s still upset about the school board’s rejection of the grant that the students applied for and won. “It sends a message to prospective students and to current students that the school board doesn’t care.”
Division spokesperson Austin Journey said last week that the Lynchburg City Schools Education Foundation has received more than $3,000 in donations from people who want to help pay for the project, which will provide space for any student at Glass to calm down if they’re feeling stressed or experiencing bullying during the school day.
Journey added on Tuesday that the foundation is planning to disburse the funds to the club next week. And Principal Dani Rule is working on plans to establish the quiet room, including developing policies for student use.
The club will be able to use any money left over for other activities, Journey said.
Meanwhile, an independent Go Fund Me online fundraiser set up by a Glass student for the quiet room project raised nearly $1,900 over the past month, and an update last week noted that funds will be transferred “to the ones who most deserve it” soon.
The quiet room is expected to cost about $2,000 to outfit it with features including soft furniture, lighting and sound machines, according to a budget the student group presented to the school board in the fall.
Student club plans put on hold during funding fight
In November, the school board rejected a $10,000 grant from the It Gets Better Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group that seeks to prevent teen suicide. The majority of board members cited reservations about advertising the source of the funding in the quiet room.
During discussion at two consecutive school board meetings in October and November, Rule and club advisors told board members repeatedly that such recognition was not required. The students had suggested putting a sign approximately the size of a sheet of paper on the door of the room to acknowledge the grant funding for the space.
In Lynchburg, all grants to schools for more than $5,000 must be approved by the school board.
The grant also would have paid for products and restroom dispensers to bring E.C. Glass in line with a state mandate for schools to provide free menstrual products, and pay for general club activities throughout the school year. Now, Lobb said, the club has put plans for a spring field trip to Richmond to visit museums there on hold.
Lobb said that members of the alliance have begun working with Lynchburg’s Queer Town Hall community group to form a youth group outside the school system.
No students from the E.C. Glass club spoke during the school board meeting last week, which took place although division schools were dismissed early due to inclement weather. But Lindsey Kirkland, a parent on the division’s equity task force, criticized the board for rejecting the grant and ignoring existing criteria for reviewing grant awards when it voted to reject the money.
Kirkland said the board discriminated against the students in the club when it rejected the award without providing clear evidence about how it failed to meet the division’s criteria, a policy that was last revised in 2020.
“The current LCS policy already provides for a fair and equitable decision if implemented correctly,” Kirkland said. But ignoring the existing policy nullifies the board’s vote to reject the money, she said.
To fix it, she asked the board to revisit the grant and vote again in line with the policy.
Ariella Assouline, who manages the grant program for the It Gets Better Project, said last week that the organization is still in contact with the Glass club and is waiting for its guidance on how it would like to move forward. When a grant to one of last year’s winners was rejected by a school board in Utah, the It Gets Better Project gave the money to a local organization to put toward similar youth projects in the area.
School board members have not made donations (yet)
After they rejected the student grant, several school board members expressed interest in donating their own money to create the quiet room at Glass.
A few weeks later, the board asked the city’s commonwealth’s attorney for advice on whether donations by board members would conflict with their appointed duties.
The guidance confirmed that board members may contribute money to the school division so long as they disclose the donation and recuse themselves from any related votes. But beyond reviewing that guidance at the board’s Jan. 9 meeting, the board didn’t discuss the aftermath of rejecting the “50 States, 50 Grants, 5,000 Voices” grant.
Board chair Atul Gupta did not respond to a request for comment on whether he still planned to make a donation for the quiet room project. Another board member who had shown interest, Christian DePaul, said by email Tuesday that more information would be coming soon.
The school board has, at least, resolved another grant issue: funding from Dick’s Sporting Goods for volleyball equipment at Dunbar Middle School. The board rejected the grant at its early December meeting, citing a need to treat each grant that came to the board for approval with equal rigor. During a Dec. 12 work session, the board unanimously rescinded that rejection, and voted to accept the $5,000 grant. Gupta noted that the board’s finance committee would review board member suggestions to promote consistency when evaluating grant awards, but did not indicate the board would consider amending the existing policy.
