School Board stumbled over a routine approval to reinstate its high school

club after the board’s newest members questioned the club’s application.

Board member Pamela Long asked if the club had a clear academic purpose. But others said that clubs don’t need to be strictly academic.

“We do have clubs like the Frisbee club,” district business manager Michael Willis said during Monday night’s meeting.

But does the club’s philosophy matter? Long asked. “So like if a Nazi club wanted to come ...,” she said.

A federal law prohibits schools with other noncurricular clubs from discriminating against gay student clubs.

Long also asked about the club’s name. The proposed name is listed as “Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA)” on one part of the application and “Cumberland Valley GLBTSA (Gay Lesbian Bi Trans Straight Alliance)” in another part. GLBT and LGBT are terms used interchangeably refer to people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Board member Barbara Gleim asked if board approval meant approving all the activities outlined in the club application, specifically, the “pink prom” a proposed dance for same-sex couples.

“If we approve that, then anybody could have their own prom at the high school,” she said.

Ultimately, approval for the club was postponed until the board’s June 17 meeting. Long initiated the motion to table the request. All but two board members voted to postpone the vote.

“My feeling is eventually, we’re going to approve, so let’s go ahead and approve it,” John Jordan, one of the members who voted against postponing, said in an interview. Jordan said he doesn’t endorse or oppose the Gay-Straight Alliance specifically but thinks that all clubs that meet the school’s guidelines should be allowed to form.

Bill DeVore, who also voted against postponing, expressed a similar view.

“According to the guidelines, they have as much a right as the chess club or the Frisbee club or any other club,” he said.

Jordan, at the meeting, asked Solicitor Michael Cassidy what might happen if the board did not approve the application. Lawsuits and a public relations nightmare, Cassidy said.

“He’s absolutely right. They would be. And conversations with the ACLU can be expensive,” said Mary Catherine Roper, staff attorney with ACLU of Pennsylvania.

“School board members aren’t usually education experts. They don’t always know school law. We’d have the expectation that they’re going to make the legal decision in this case, which is to approve the club,” Roper said.

Cumberland Valley had a GSA club, but it disbanded several years ago when the students who were most involved graduated.

In a separate interview, Long defended her motion to table the vote. She had additional questions beyond what was in the application, she said. For example, would the club be part of a larger organization, which would require a charter and possibly dues? She declined to comment whether she would support a Gay-Straight Alliance club at Cumberland Valley.

Nick Clark, a student representative to the school board, said he found Long’s objections to be nitpicking.

“She kept bringing up these little details that had nothing to do with the club itself,” he said. Clark said he suspected the board would approve the club at the next meeting but saw little reason to postpone the vote.

“It’s just frustrating and a little bit annoying that they would table something because of the semantics of the application,” he said.

Cumberland Valley’s board sanctioned the GSA club in 2007 without fanfare.

Even if it were legal to turn down the application, doing so would be bad idea, said Shannon Powers, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

“You would be further alienating a group that is already alienated. They’re rejected by so many and maybe even their parents. They need the support of one another and administrators who might have a positive attitude toward them,” she said.

Twenty high schools in the area have similar clubs, including Carlisle Area, Central Dauphin, Central Dauphin East, Cedar Cliff in the West Shore School District, Cedar Crest in the Cornwall-Lebanon School District, Lebanon, Lower Dauphin, Palmyra Area and Shippensburg Area.

But Waynesboro Area School Board last year tabled a request for a gay-straight club after some board and community members opposed it. Ultimately, the board voted 6-3 to approve a club.

Alyssa Nestler, who will be a senior next year, is trying to revive Cumberland Valley’s club to help students who are dealing with the same challenges she’s gone through. Nestler said she began to realize she was a lesbian at the beginning of high school. She met her first girlfriend in 10th grade.

“It was kind of a scary experience for us,” she said during an interview Tuesday. “See, at that time, we’d only heard scary stories about the gay community. Nobody really talked about being gay and doing other things.”

There were a lot of unanswered questions. How would her parents react when she came out to them? What would her friends think? How would she be treated at school? Would she be able to live a normal life or would she face discrimination around every corner? A school club, Nestler said, would give young people who realize they are gay, lesbian or bisexual a place to find people with similar experiences who they could to turn to.

“I’d like to make it so kids don’t have to worry about that,” Nestler said. “You can be gay and be just fine.”

Putting an end to harassment from other students also would be a major focus, she said.

“It’s not unordinary to walk through the halls and hear: 'Hey, faggot,' ” said Kyla Kauffman, another student who’s working to revive the club. “We’re hoping with GSA to abolish that.”