Various students from MCCSC high schools are currently working toward creating a safer and more inclusive environment at MCCSC. Racism is a large problem in our current world, but these students want to help improve the lives of everyone in our school community.
“[They] are working towards equality, and [they’re] not solving, but reducing racism,” according to sophomore Jael Davis.
A policy was presented at the school board last week, January 31, 2023, but it has been tabled, or paused, to ensure that it could be perfected before implementation in our schools.
This policy has been in the works for quite a long time. Davis has been working on it since 2021, and another sophomore who has worked on it, Sydney Crossley, has worked on it since May of last year. With implementing a new district policy, Davis says, “It’s a really tedious process. Just going through the loopholes and the going back and forth waiting for responses [takes a while.]”
Despite the tremendous effort, Davis says everyone is still working towards it because they “want it to be known that this is a problem, and we need to do something to fix it.”
Originally, the policy started off as a petition to help with racism specifically inside BHSS. But eventually, with the help of others, steps were shared on how to get a policy implemented, and students began talking with the school board.
The policy has been tabled by the school board, but this is actually something that was called for by the students creating this policy. Currently, the draft that the school board presented is a racial equity policy. While this is always good, the students are calling specifically for anti-racism measures to dominate the policy.
Some key things that are priorities for this group to stop in our school system include, “slurs, blackface, and acts of violence,” according to Davis. She also wants the policy to include more opportunities for victims of racism to seek help such as counseling to deal with the traumatic experiences they encounter.
Currently, Crossley feels that “racism throughout our schools is being ignored, pushed to the side, and not really handled.”
Once the desired policy is put into place in MCCSC, Davis said she feels “like I will have more hope for this community. Even though it is not going to completely end or stop all racism, it is definitely a start.”
Crossley said she thinks, “it will create a better and more inclusive environment for people of color in our schools.”
