Owen guesses about half the students are LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender).
The school building, an unassuming brick block set back from a main road, doesn't fly rainbow flags or emblazon its walls with posters of pink triangles. There's no entrance criteria on the grounds of sexual orientation or anything else. Call it a gay school and you will be promptly corrected. Its aim is to cater to a community that is at best ignored and, at worst, is actively denied its existence – lesbian and gay youth. Five of them had lived with me at some point during the year, for one reason or another.'Īlliance is not a regular school. 'But a lot of them had not been going to school because they were being bullied, and a lot of them had problems at home. 'They were smart,' recalls Tina Owen, the school's founder and lead teacher. I n the first graduating class at Milwaukee's Alliance High School, the valedictorian – the year's most distinguished student – scored a D+.
