A St. Vrain Valley charter school's leadership is under fire from gay rights activists and others for blocking a class valedictorian from giving a graduation speech in which he planned to out himself as gay.

Evan Young, an 18-year-old graduating senior at Longmont's  Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School,with a 4.5 GPA and a scholarship awaiting him at Rutgers University, also was not recognized as valedictorian at his school's May 16 graduation.

Young said he had agreed to several advance edits to his speech by school Principal BJ Buchmann. But he resisted when Buchmann told him to also take out his disclosure of being gay.

"One of my themes is that I was going to tell everyone my secrets," Young explained Thursday. "Most of the things were stupid stuff — books I never read that I was supposed to, or homework I didn't like. But then I gradually worked up to serious secrets.

"My main theme is that you're supposed to be respectful of people, even if you don't agree with them. I figured my gayness would be a very good way to address that."

Young said he emailed Buchmann with his revised speech with all but the one requested edit having been made, and did so several days in advance of the May 16 graduation ceremony. 

The school contends he failed to do so as required and that his presentation was canceled "to protect the solemnity of the evening and to preserve and protect the mission of the school."

A statement released by the school's board of directors stated that Young failed to abide by pre-screening rules — and also "failed to follow guidelines of the evening by removing the sleeves of his graduation gown."

A comment in that statement, attributed to school attorney Barry Arrington, said a graduation ceremony is "a time for family and those closest to the students to celebrate success and express mutual wishes of gratitude and respect. It is not a time for a student to use his commencement speech to push his personal agenda on a captive audience, and school officials are well within their rights to prevent that from happening."

'I was not OK with it'

According to Young and his family, prior to the graduation ceremony, the principal called the student's father, Don Young — who has previously served on the charter school's board of directors — and outed the teen to his parents.

"Mr. Buchmann called me and said, 'I've got Evan's speech here. There's two things in it that I don't think are appropriate,'" Don Young, an accountant, recalled. "One was he had mentioned another student's name. And then there was his coming out that he was gay."

That was the first time in Evan Young's life that his parents had been given a clue about his sexual identity.

"My parents are very liberal. I think they were totally OK with it," Evan Young. "But I was not OK with it.

"I think what it mainly showed is that he didn't have a lot of sympathy for me, or someone in my position. He didn't understand how personal a thing it was, and that I wasn't just going to share it with people randomly, for no reason. I thought it was very inconsiderate for him to do something like that, especially without asking me first."

Their son's sexuality, reported to them by their child's principal, was not earthshaking news to Don Young and his wife. 

"He's Evan, you know?" his father said. "He's never really expressed interest in either (boys or girls). He's just a teenager. ... But we had no indication beforehand."

Initially, Evan's parents were somewhat sympathetic to Buchmann's decision concerning the speech.

"His mother and I were not sure that his coming out in a valedictorian speech was the appropriate place to say it, with grandchildren and 3-year-olds in the audience, and that's kind of what we said to BJ," Don Young said.

However, both Evan Young and his father said Buchmann only notified the student and his family a few minutes before the ceremony that his speech — or even a recognition of his status as valedictorian in the graduating class of about 30 — would not be part of the year-ending proceedings.

"On the Friday, the day before the ceremony, I had written him (Buchmann) a handwritten letter so that he couldn't forward it," Evan Young said. "I'd told him I'm not going to remove the part where I say I'm gay, because I am. It's important to me. And I said if he has any questions, he can contact me by email over the next 24 hours or so.

"He didn't ever email me back, and so I figured he must be OK with my speech."

Evan's parents, now almost two weeks after the fact, aren't happy with the way the matter was handled by Buchmann, who could not be reached Thursday for comment.

"The kid worked hard for four years," Don Young said. "Straight A's and everything else. He wasn't even recognized."

Student privacy 

The controversy quickly reached the attention of the LGBT advocacy group  Out Boulder.

Mardi Moore, executive director of Out Boulder, said: "It's wrong, and it's not fair. The young man has all but a 4.5 GPA; he has told me that since a toddler he has worked for that honor, and they denied it.

"I wish I could say that I'm surprised, but I'm not surprised because I get to talk to youth on a regular basis who continue to be exposed to bullying and continue to encounter administrators and principals who do not understand much about the LGBT experience."

As for Buchmann's allegedly telling Evan Young's parents about his sexuality, Out Boulder board President Ann Noonan said, "That is a total violation of his educational privacy rights, if that in fact happened. It just goes from bad to worse."

A meeting to discuss the issue took place at the St. Vrain Valley School District  office in Longmont on May 21, including Superintendent Don Haddad, Assistant Superintendent Regina Renaldi, Buchmann, Moore and  One Colorado Executive Director Dave Montez, who labeled the episode "disheartening."

"I would say to the high school principal, outing someone to his family without giving them the opportunity to have that conversation, is dangerous and it can lead to terrible repercussions for LGBT kids," Montez said. 

Some reports of the Twin Peaks controversy had also reached the ears of Rev. Luke Grobe, a pastor at Longmont's United Church of Christ and chairman of the  St. Vrain Valley Safe Schools Coalition.

"One of the questions that comes to my mind is, are our schools in place to support the students for who they are there, or are our schools in place to prevent our students from being who they are?" Grobe said.

St. Vrain Valley school board President Bob Smith said he had learned of the episode through Haddad, the district superintendent. Haddad also could not be reached for comment.

"Being one of the charters over which we don't set policy, I wouldn't have any comment on it," Smith said. 

In the Boulder Valley School District, 2013  Fairview High School graduate Ted Chalfen gave a commencement address — he had auditioned for the right to do so, as he was not a valedictorian — in which he talked about his status as a gay student.

Chalfen's sexuality, unlike Young's, was already known by a number of his peers, and Fairview Principal Don Stensrud supported him as a featured speaker.

Hearing on Thursday about Evan Young's speech being scuttled, Chalfen — who has just completed his sophomore year at the University of Colorado — said, "As sad as it is, it doesn't shock me that this happened."