Milwaukee's finest: one lesbian teacher's vision of a safe place for LGBT high school students is a reality for 107 kids in Wisconsin--for now at least.

The kids are arguing over the music again. The night began with a little Top 40, then turned country. One group of students, goth-punk types, is requesting heavy metal. The lesbians want booty-shaking R&B.

"We are a diverse community," Valerie Chuchman yells over the crowd with a combination of bemusement and exasperation common among teachers who work around hormonally charged teens for eight hours a day. "We will listen to all sorts of trashy music."

The kids laugh. The 34-year-old teacher at the Alliance School in Milwaukee walks toward the DJ table. The music starts, and R&B wins for the moment.

Destiny's Child huffs: "Baby boy, make me lose my breath / Bring the noise, make me lose my breath / Hit me hard, make me lose my [pant pant]." One boy sashays to the dance floor with enough hip-shaking attitude to make Naomi Campbell look like a schoolmarm. With arms pushed forward with each pant, he pretends to freak on a couple of girls, then leaves the dance floor, still working it.

He's so-o-o not straight. At any other high school dance he'd likely be called a fag and beaten up. But this isn't any high school dance, and the Alliance School isn't just any school. Opened near downtown Milwaukee in August 2005, it's a bold public charter school for students who feel bullied and harassed. An estimated 70% are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Alliance currently has 107 students but could grow to 150.

On June 1 the first group of graduating seniors donned caps and gowns. One student had already graduated. "She finished all her classes early, so on her last day all of the students lined the hallway so she could walk through and hug everyone while we played Vitamin C's 'Graduation' song," says lead teacher and cofounder Tina Owen, 33. "I was all emotional."

Yet for all the progress, the Alliance School's future is in jeopardy. At the time Alliance opened, Milwaukee Public Schools gave the school two years to find a permanent home. Owen has located a nearby space that she believes will enrich the students' learning: a cavernous warehouse located above a nonprofit group. Called Bucketworks, it brings together a performance space, gallery, workshops, computer labs, recording studio, and wood shop that attract business leaders, groups, and families.

The renovations to Bucketworks and five-year lease will cost $1.5 million, and Owen has convinced the landlord to match the first $500,000, but that still means the school needs to raise $1 million before it can get approval from the school board. So far it has about $15,000, and Owen has no idea where to turn.

She has written Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey. While on a trip to New York City, she even tried to deliver a binder and a proposal letter about the new location to Donald Trump, handing them to the doorman at the Trump Tower. 'We are still trying to raise money, but the prospects are looking dismal right now," Owen says. "Raising that sort of money is a full-time job in itself, but we are still working on it every chance that we get."

Alliance is a mix of contradictions: a safe haven for gay students that is located in the heart of a rough-and-tumble, blue-collar city built by the beer industry. To enter the school's temporary headquarters, visitors must walk through a gate that leads into a quaint courtyard and to a building made from cream-colored brick that was once the headquarters of the Schlitz Brewing Co.

Strong emphasis is put on service learning at Alliance, as "students are encouraged and expected to be change agents in their own communities," says a brochure for the school, which adds that Alliance is "a place where it's OK to be black, white, gay, straight, punk, gothic, disabled, Buddhist, or--to keep it simple--just plain unique."

The school operates by democratic governance. Weekly school-side meetings take place to determine the needs of Alliance, celebrate successes, discuss cares and concerns, provide announcements, and share information. A disciplinary council comprises students from each grade, at least one parent, a community member, and staff members.

Maybe most surprising are the students. The phrase charter school evokes an image of yuppie parents, the tweedy professorial kind who want their kids to have the best education money can buy. At least 55% of Alliance's students live near or below poverty level, and 60% come from racial or ethnic minority groups.

"These aren't your suburban kids who get to go home to their four-bedroom bi-level house and get to drive the Toyota that was bought for them," says Chuchman, a lesbian who teaches science and was recruited from Milwaukee's Hamilton High School last August. "They're generally poor. Some of them are in group homes, and some are homeless."

Alliance was largely the brainchild of Owen, a lesbian who serves as the lead teacher. She graduated from Marquette University in 1998, earning high honors in English and secondary education. She was teaching English at the city's Washington High School five years ago when a student asked her to help start a gay-straight alliance.

"It was a struggle right away," she remembers, even as upward of 40 teens started coming to the meeting every week. Some were from other schools, and the principal quickly barred the visitors. "The kids all of a sudden had nowhere to go," Owen says.

Incidents of harassment of LGBT students followed, but parents were reluctant to get the American Civil Liberties Union involved. Owen had finally had enough. She'd heard about the opening of the Harvey Milk School in New York as a safe haven for students. She also learned about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, founded by the Microsoft chief executive.

"Bill and Melinda Gates were starting small schools all over the country and looking for people to start them," Owen says. "I asked one of my friends, 'Do you want to try and write a proposal?' And we sat down and wrote 15 pages. That was January 2004, and it was accepted in May."

Through its agency TALC New Vision, the Gates Foundation awarded the school $50,000, a planning grant matched by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. TALC and the Wisconsin DPI then awarded implementation grants totaling $250,000 to purchase equipment, materials, and cover operating expenses. As part of Milwaukee Public Schools, the Alliance School also receives $7,200 per student. The massive reorganization of the long-embattled public school system was in Alliance's favor--an estimated 50 new schools were to open under the plan.

Reporters for the local gay newspaper and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote stories about Alliance. Owen was prepared for a conservative backlash, but none came. "Wisconsin was one of the first states to get protections for gay and lesbian people," she reasons. "Even parents who are struggling with the idea of their child being gay or lesbian still want their child to be safe."

Alliance's counselor Jennifer Wilson, who now consults for Milwaukee Public Schools, told the Journal Sentinel that the school's academic foundation would be strong. "We're not about feeling warm and fuzzy," she says.

Milwaukee room Kira Williams enrolled her 14-year-old daughter, Rashema Simmons, in the school because of the harassment coming from the students and teachers at a larger public high school. One group of boys found out Rashema was a lesbian and would call her out to fight. But now, "I don't hear her complain about her work. She doesn't skip classes," says Williams.

Rashema plays football and soccer and likes to read Edgar Allan Poe. She hopes to go to the University of Wisconsin or Marquette. At her previous school, she says, "Boys would jump you, the girls would jump you--they didn't like the fact that you were a lesbian. My mom heard about Alliance, and she kept telling me to think about coming here."

What does she think of her new school? "It's more of a community. No one is treated unfairly here. You can go up to someone and say 'I'm a lesbian' without getting jumped. The teachers are more understanding, and they let you be yourself. That makes the kids act a lot better."

Terrell Lacey, 18, came all the way from Chicago to attend Alliance. He'd been fighting with his parents and dropped out of high school. His friend, Stephen Chandler, 17, was attending Alliance and urged him to enroll. "When I came here I was completely shocked," Terrell says. "There's nothing like this as far as openness." Both Terrell and Stephen graduated June 1.

In the months Terrell was at Alliance, his grades improved and he became closer to his family. He has applied to Cardinal Stritch University, a private school of over 7,200 students in Milwaukee. He wants to major in theater or psychology. "At Alliance there's a big emphasis put on acceptance and respect for differences in lifestyles," he says. 'The teachers are very involved and very helpful in everything."

That's exactly why Catia Young, a 14-year-old transgender girl, agreed to come to Alliance. She lives in a group home through the city's foster care system and was signed up by a social worker. She wasn't allowed to wear women's clothes until arriving at Alliance.

"A lot of times at my old school, I was beat up," she says. "I was ready to come to a different type of school. This school year has been great. Everyone has been open to diversity. You can be yourself here."

Graham is a business reporter at The Arizona Republic.