Ahead of Pride Month celebrated each June, the Petaluma City Schools Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution on April 14 directing all campuses in the district to fly the Pride flag throughout the school year. Specifically, the district will now fly the Progress Pride flag, designed in 2018 as an update to the traditional rainbow flag to emphasize inclusion and intersectionality within the LGBTQ+ community.
In recent years, schools flew the Pride flag from May 22 — Harvey Milk Day — through the end of June, although some schools within the district opted to fly it all year.
“If we only did it in June, that would be like one day of school, which is depressing,” explained Petaluma City Schools trustee Caitlin Quinn, who helped lead this latest effort. “But some school sites were flying it other days or all year round, and so we really saw a need for consistency because it was a lot of pressure to be putting on principals and site leadership to be the deciding factor of if it was getting flown or not, or being the ones to get pushback if there was pushback from the community.”
Quinn, as well as board member Ellen Webster and two student trustees, were tasked by Superintendent Matthew Harris with evaluating the current flag-flying practices and ensuring a unified, districtwide approach.
Following discussion with stakeholders, Quinn said trustees realized pushback or negative comments only really occurred right after the flag was raised each year. “So, we thought that it was more consistent to fly it all year round rather than putting it up and taking it down a couple times a year and just normalize it and have it be a part of all our campus culture and campus communities, not just the ones that have a vocal family or student asking for it,” she said. “Because every school has a queer or trans student or family or staff, whether they know it or not. You don’t always know if someone is a member of that community, so showing that support no matter what, I think was really important to us as a board.”
The change was also important to the community — aside from a few negative emails and comments on social media, Quinn said there were significantly more emails from local community members, alumni, students and teachers in support of the policy.
That’s a far cry from June 2025, when a 54-year-old Petaluma man was arrested for allegedly threatening to “execute” a district official if the district’s Pride flags were not taken down. No such threats have been reported in response to the district’s recently adopted policy at the time of this writing.
“I think the community is really supportive. I don’t think that we cured homophobia or cured transphobia and it’s all kumbaya now, but there hasn’t been a lot of pushback, at least not directly to us,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s a symbol. It doesn’t change policy or it doesn’t magically make bullies not bully, or make homophobic adults not be homophobic or transphobic, but it does signal that the district is thinking about inclusion, that the adults on campus are committed to that, and that school should be a safe place. And that if it’s not, that’s when we need to be living up to our values, and students and staff and families need to be comfortable going to their principal or to the board to point out any issues of homophobia or transphobia or lack of inclusion that they’ve been seen on their campus so we can address it, whether it’s through enforcing a current policy or enacting new policy or just enforcing existing law.”
“I think symbolism is an important part of what we can do right now as elected officials and as school district leaders, especially when trans people and especially trans kids are under attack around the whole country,” Quinn said.
She noted that flying a $20 flag is a “cheap and easy way comparatively to show our support and our inclusion with really minimal effort,” but it’s not the last step the board intends to make toward creating more inclusive classrooms.
“There’s so many other things that school boards need to be focusing on … we’re looking to make sure what we’re doing with inclusive education is more than just the books that we read in English classes,” Quinn said, noting that students can learn about queer leaders throughout history, or about different species that change their gender for various reasons in science class.
“There’s so many ways to learn about and support the LGBTQIA+ community through all different subject matter,” Quinn explained. “Flying a flag is just one teeny, tiny part of inclusivity.”
