One in five Thames Valley students in grades 7 to 12 who filled out a school board-wide optional survey identify as a sexual orientation other than heterosexual, according to a new report.
Those statistics and others were released as the result of the confidential Every Student Belongs survey, administered during the 2020-2021 school year that focused on students’ identities, religious beliefs, spiritual affiliation, gender, sexual orientation and disabilities, board officials said.
Only those from Grade 7 to 12 were asked about sexual orientation.
“This is the first time Thames Valley has conducted a survey of this kind,” said education director Mark Fisher. “We are looking forward to using what we’re learned about student identities to continue to build equity and focus our work on anti-racism and anti-oppression.
“This work is essential to all the work we do.”
-
Slashing student suspensions top priority for Thames Valley school board
-
Their clothes, their voices: Students promised input on school dress codes
According to the report, 21 per cent of student respondents listed their sexual orientation as asexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, pansexual, polysexual, queer, questioning and two-spirited or left it blank.
And four per cent of the more 36,000 students who participated — the board has almost 83,000 students in total — identify as agender, gender fluid, transgender, non-binary, pangender, questioning, two-spirited or didn’t list one.
The overall response rate to the survey for students in Grades 7 to 12 was 46 per cent, while the response rate from families of pupils in kindergarten to Grade 6 was 30 per cent.
Other findings include: five per cent of students identify as First Nations, Metis or Inuit, while 15 per cent identify as racialized, and six per cent identify with more than one racial group. In total there were 250 ethnic and cultural origins represented among the students who replied to the survey, with 50 different religions, creeds, beliefs or spiritual affiliations.
Fifteen per hundred were born outside of Canada.
More than 100 different languages are spoken by Thames Valley students. Nine per cent of students identify as having a disability.