Published: May 1, 1990

Reach Them And Teach Them

It wasn't an isolated incident, she discovered. The same student had to leave his former school under similar circumstances.

In response, Uribe started an informal lunch-time support group in her classroom for homosexual students. Six years later, that discussion group has evolved into Project 10, said to be the country's only counseling program for gay and lesbian students in a mainstream high school setting. The name comes from an often-cited statistic: that 10 percent of all Americans are believed to be homosexual.

Uribe describes Project 10, which is funded by the school district, as a dropout-prevention program designed to meet the unique needs of homosexual students. "Homosexuality is the last of the taboo subjects,'' she says. "I think the homophobia of the education system encourages...