The Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) club never completely ended at Omaha Central High School, but over the past couple years, it started to trickle to an end. The past sponsor was unable to be as available as the club needed. The biggest issue came when students were unsure when meetings were going to happen.
Hayden Brown, an English teacher at Central and new club sponsor, said attendance started to drop.
Brown started teaching at Central during the 2021-22 school year. He noticed the GSA club was not as prominent as he wanted and assumed it would be. After spending his first two years observing, he felt it was time to get involved. “I think having a GSA and working to make it better is [a] symbolic act of, ‘This is how our school is going to be; this is how I would like our school to be,’” he said.
Brown himself heard about GSA in high school. He then attended a conservative Christian college, where he tried to start a GSA club but was shut down. After coming to Central, Brown aims to take his third go at GSA.
GSA has importance not just to the school but to Brown himself. GSA “shows a desire to make sure this is a place for everybody,” Brown said.
Although the club never technically ended, Brown is having to rebuild it. “It’s attempting to be a fresh start,” Brown said.
This year, GSA has had a few successful meetings, but they are struggling with low attendance. “The first year of anything is not going to be its best year,” Brown said. After this year of building a foundation and getting people involved, he plans to go bigger next year.
Meetings are every Tuesday and Thursday after school. “I attempt to let student decision guide what we do,” Brown said. The meetings can be about a wide range of things: discussions, writing letters to politicians, taking a trip to watch a film or a student-led activity.
“The bottom line of GSA is to make life simpler for those who need it and to educate those who need that,” Brown said.
As for the goals of GSA this year, Brown highlights trust and consistency, which would instill confidence among the students. “I hope that we can begin to trust it … it needs to be very, very consistent,” he said.
“At its heart, GSA is supposed to be a place where students feel they can go consistently for support or to broaden their scope of the world,” Brown said.
