Ms. Hart and Ms. Holly during the Rainbow Ribbon Ceremony

By Kevin Barry and Falak Jamal

Co-Editor-in-Chief, Arts & Entertainment Editor

The Rainbow Ribbon Certification certifies that Hammond High School is representative of the LGBTQIA+ youth. It reminds the school that awarding us a full rainbow ribbon shows that we integrate LGBTQIA+ material into our teaching. “It’s woven into everything we do, our curriculum, classrooms. It’s just a part of who we are.” says Mrs. Hart, the co-lead of the Rainbow Ribbon project. 

Hammond is the first school in Howard County to receive all colors on their first try within one year. The Rainbow Certification is similar to a school getting a green ribbon certification to prove we are environmentally friendly, the Rainbow Ribbon proves we make the LGBTQIA+ community accessible and inviting to people all over the school.

CARY (Community Allies of Rainbow Youth) is the organization with a mission to advocate for the LGBTQIA+ youth that often don’t get the voice they deserve. They do this by providing resources to schools and certifying them of Rainbow Ribbons. Their goals consist of implementing inclusive curriculum, staff training that focuses on the issues of LGBTQIA+, and prioritizing hiring more LGBTQIA+ staff members. 

It may be asked about the importance of the rainbow ribbon and according to the rainbow representative of our school, “It just reaffirms that we already do these amazing things to support students and staff of the LBTQIA+ community”.

There were many fortunate outcomes of being awarded the Rainbow Ribbon from the school. “The staff, a part of the community, felt more comfortable showing that part of their life in school.” says Rainbow Representative Ms. Holly. 

It was a complex and thorough process to prove to CARY that we were actually implementing these ideas instead of just “ hanging up a sticker to show support”. Many staff members took part in a course held by, LGBTQIA+ initiatives specialist, Danielle Dupuis called the rainbow inquiry course. By taking the course, staff members were able to work out ways to structure their curriculum to achieve the goals of pertaining to the LGBTQIA+ community. For instance, the Spanish teacher and the Rainbow Ribbon project co-lead made her curriculum more inclusive by introducing the students to neutral inclusive pronouns to utilize.

The teachers investigated many subject areas that deal with the LGBTQIA+ community in order to culminate a project to present to CARY.  They pulled curriculum from all different subject areas to show that the community was being represented everywhere. “it was really cool to see what other subjects are doing, it could have been anything but Hammond chose to work towards the Rainbow Ribbon” says Ms. Holly.Those in charge of the initiative have to prepare for the renewal process that occurs every few years to show that Hammond is still inclusive of the LGBTQIA+ community even after the certification gets approved.

Senior Sebastian Hurt, who attended the ribbon ceremony remarked, “It was really exciting, and not necessarily that we conquered homophobia or anything… But that some people were caring a lot about it and going out of their way to get this’ With the completion of the certification we are far from done here at Hammond; “the goal is always to continue moving forward with everything we started previously.” said Ms. Hart. Although this certification is a huge step forward our school is always striving to be better, and serving the LGBTQIA+ community is no different.