Beginning August 1, middle school students in Arizona will be able to attend a self-described “queer” school using the state’s taxpayer-funded voucher system.
The Queer Blended Learning Center is a new “microschool”—described as a “modern-day one-room schoolhouse”—that will “aim to give young people who may feel uncomfortable in a larger school a safe space to be themselves and learn,” according to the Arizona Republic. This new school will combine youth from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade under the instruction of one teacher, and will be taught with a special consideration toward LGBTQ+ topics. The school will also feature single-stall bathrooms instead of bathrooms divided by sex, the Arizona Republic reported.
Through the state’s voucher program, which was signed into law by former Gov. Doug Ducey in July 2022, students will be able to pay for their tuition using taxpayer-funded vouchers. The program allows more than 1.1 million Arizona students to be eligible for the state to cover up to $7,000 for school-related expenses, including transferring schools and private school tuition.
The Queer Blended Learning Center will be housed in the downtown Phoenix headquarters of the LGBTQ+ nonprofit one∙n∙ten. One∙n∙ten is an organization “dedicated to serving and assisting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth,” according to its website. At the school, students will be taught reading, writing, math, and science through an online homeschooling program called Time4Learning, and will be taught LGBTQ+ history and social studies from two New York City Department of Education curriculums focused on “populations and communities that aren't always prevalent in traditional textbooks.”
One∙n∙ten CEO Nate Rhoton told Arizona Republic that he believes the school will be “lifesaving” for the students that attend.
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“We’re seeing nationally that LGBTQ youth are, frankly, under attack legislatively” and culturally, Rhoton said. “It’s deadly to the youth that we serve."
The school was founded in part because of the widespread cultural debate about how to address gender and sexuality in schools and legislation. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed two bills concerning transgender students in schools—one that would prohibit teachers from calling a student by another name or pronouns without parental permission, and another which would have confined transgender students to using bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their biological sex.
Some have championed the school as a win for the concept of school choice, including the Arizona Department of Education’s Director of Communications, Nick Doug.
“Arizona is the leader in school choice and this school is one example of parents taking advantage of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program to provide the education they believe is best for their children,” Doug said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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