Author Stephen Lane, a teacher at Concord-Carlisle High School (CCHS), will discuss his new book No Sanctuary: Teachers and the School Reform that Brought Gay Rights to the Masses. Mr. Lane will also lead a forum, in which the participants will discuss their experiences.

Until very recently school was a special sort of nightmare for LGBT youth, who were often targets of both verbal and physical harassment with nowhere to turn for support. No Sanctuary: Teachers and the School Reform that Brought Gay Rights to the Masses tells the story of a mostly unseen rescue attempt by a small group of Boston-area teachers who led the push to make schools safer for these at-risk students. Their efforts, begun in isolation at their individual schools, became the blueprint for Massachusetts education policy and then the model for a nationwide movement, resulting in one of the most successful, far-reaching and ongoing school reform efforts in recent times. By shedding light on the as yet untold history of the Safe School Movement, No Sanctuary offers an important challenge to the traditional top-down narrative concerning the process of school reform—i.e. that school leadership seeks progressive change while teachers resist, unwilling to abandon outdated but comfortable practices—and broadens our conception of how change comes to schools in order to open the door to new ideas for how to better serve future generations of students.

Reception and Book Signing to follow.