When 15-year-old Lawrence King was shot and killed for being gay last month in his classroom in California, it spurred a lot of questions, and rightly so.

But his death should do more than cause people to grieve and wonder how our society, even our children, have become so violent. As we pointed out in this space last week, King’s senseless slaying should cause us to examine our own schools here in Chicago and ask what we can do to teach our children that homophobia and the violent behavior it so often spawns is wrong.

There are concrete steps Chicago Public Schools can take, and those steps are long overdue.

For starters, CPS administrators, teachers and other employees should receive mandatory training on how to respond to and combat homophobia. Right now, that training is voluntary, given at the option of individual school principals. Consequently, a small number of schools have made it available to staff members. Most school principals, including those in the very areas where it’s most needed, have not.

It should have been obvious to CPS officials long ago that making this training optional is nothing more than window-dressing that has done very little to address an issue of real concern to GLBT students and their parents. The time for equivocation on this is past—the training needs to be mandatory and comprehensive, and it needs to start this year in every CPS school.

Beyond that, CPS officials need to add education about homophobia to the school curriculum at every grade level. This isn’t complicated. Legislation is on the books in Chicago and Illinois that classifies crimes committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation or gender identity as hate crimes. We also have laws that outlaw discrimination against GLBTs in employment, housing and public accommodations.

Passage of such laws by legislative majorities means that those laws reflect mainstream values in our city and state. CPS schools should devote a small amount of study time each year to explaining to our children what those laws mean and why they were passed. Such instruction and the discussions it sparks in the classroom would go a long way toward teaching children that homophobia is wrong.

Again, that instruction needs to start in the first grade and continue every year until students graduate.

CPS can easily institute these needed reforms. Nothing we’re calling for costs a lot of money. Non-profit community groups—in particular the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance—are ready and willing to assist CPS officials in carrying out these reforms.

The only thing lacking right now is a commitment from CPS and City officials to go beyond mere words and take meaningful action to break the cycle of homophobia in our culture. It’s easy to say you oppose discrimination and bias. It takes action to actively stop it from happening.

We need action now.

If you agree, please take a moment to let CPS CEO Arne Duncan know how you feel. Call him at (773) 553-1500 and tell him you want CPS to immediately institute mandatory training of CPS personnel to combat homophobia. And tell him you want CPS schools to add education about homophobia to the curriculum of every school.

It’s time to quit talking about making CPS schools safe spaces for GLBT students. It’s time to actually do it.