 everybody. My name is J.K. I've been a teacher in the building. I think this is my 12th year. And I was asked by our administration just to facilitate this evening's community forum. So I've crafted a little agenda up here for folks to follow. We're going to talk about some discussion norms as we hear from our student panel. There'll be four rounds of student voices. We have four rounds of questions for them to consider and share their reflections on their experiences here in the building. Then we'll open it up to community questions and answers from our student panel and hopefully work together to frame some action steps moving forward. So I have some discussion norms just to review for everybody. Obviously we want to practice one voice at a time, especially as our student volunteers are here. We'll practice good eye contact. We'll disagree with ideas, not with people. Hopefully and ideally supporting our ideas with evidence of our lived experience as we share our stories. And then the asking questions is built right into our agenda today. So approaching the conversation tonight with curiosity so that we can learn more about safe environments for our school and or for our students to begin. So again I'm JK. First round actually let's now introduce our student panels. Hi, I'm Layla. I'm Sierra. How about your year old school? I'm a 12th grader and I'm a junior. And I think how many students were actually asked to participate and like two dozen or so. And as we see from trying to find parking in the building or around the building this evening there are competing events buying for our students attention. So we are so thankful to have your voices here. Thank you for joining us today Layla and Sierra. Okay so we're gonna get right into the rounds and the first one we're gonna you know do a little compliment sandwich here. So we're gonna start off with some positives. Currently what do you think feels really positive about the RU school community? What feels safe? I feel like currently some of the things that feel very positive are like I think for one campus life run by Layla. Layla is the president. I think it's a good way like to get students involved in like the school. There's like fun mini games throughout the week this week. Of course pying teachers. And I feel like that was a good way to like get people to sort of you know agree on something and like be in community around something. I think that was really good. I think also like some other classes especially sort of like the smaller classes where it's more of like a community class like for example like racial justice you know there's a group of us we're all there for the same reason we all want to be there. And that feels just like a very good sort of community to have around. It's like those types of groups too like like a little smaller community within the school. I think like extra curriculars, theater that type of stuff. Can I just ask I think with your mask it's kind of hard to hear so maybe if you talk louder or slower or something I'm sorry. No worries. And it is a common thing with masks. Thank you for asking. I'd say campus life I'd agree with you for it with that. I think that with campus life we've seen a lot more community within the school. I know the first spirit week that we had was the week we came back to school after the news outbreak happened and it was really hard. But would you mind just describing campus life? Oh yeah so my senior project is campus life. It's basically planning spirit weeks prep rallies dances and anything that has to do with student involvement out of school and within school to kind of make the environment here more exciting and more enjoyable and something to look forward to. With campus life my main goal is to keep it here and to keep students happy. So I think that the positive with that is that it was right after the news outbreak and it was very nice to see people happy and to not see people mad like when we did the tunnel during the prep rally for students get called out by name by sport and they run out through a tunnel to kind of celebrate fall athletes. The girls volleyball team was there and we worked together and this is another positive that we can work together as students and teachers to make up plans that we both like to incorporate into our spirit weeks and prep rallies. So I go to JK and I go to bet and I'm like what can we do because I don't want to call out names and have an outlash or a backlash towards certain names that are called out and it was let's just not call names that's how easy it was and I think that's a really good positive is just being able to you know talk with teachers and be like hey like this is not really working well can we fix this and I think that's a really good thing that we have here are you is just there's so many teachers and not so so many students so we're able to like go one-on-one and talk to teachers one-on-one either if it's about grades if it's about planning you know our school our schedule or you know being like hey Mr. Kalman like my the class isn't really doing it for me like what can I do better or what can we do to incorporate something more not fun but more like hands-on because that's how I learn and you're able to like make those lessons with the teachers and you know put that positive stuff out with them and work together awesome thanks ladies what I was just going to offer and because I saw Sierra jotting some notes down the little handout and just for clarity maybe also for anyone who could be like streaming the forum is a tool I use in the classroom but also one that I'm asking community members to consider tonight which is what I call mental mapping so it's basically a space where what can sometimes feel very vulnerable and unsafe even something as simple as like a silly question that's like what's your favorite pizza topping and Layla says mushrooms and Sarah's like mushrooms are disgusting it's like okay you know like we don't need to have like such you know outbursts about mushrooms it doesn't matter right so instead students who have strong feelings about pizza toppings or anything have a place to land those thoughts so some people might be writing down mushrooms as like that is my also sane that's my favorite topping too and it provides room for Sierra to disagree and say exact opposite view hate mushrooms right um someone has never heard of mushrooms before so they could mentally map that in the brand new column and the way that Layla is describing the mushrooms on her pizza I've heard of mushrooms before but I thought about canned mushrooms these are fresh mushrooms I am thinking about these in a brand new way it's not a new idea but I'm thinking about them totally differently this is a place for us to just land our thoughts and just to you know ground the conversation and reactions as they might come up so I saw you using that tool I wanted to explain it for transparency just as like a guide before we head into our next question which is going to turn the conversation around a little bit and so I think it's really important too as the community is listening to this the students respond to the next question that they think about like their perceptions of the school and what the students are offering and like where the student and what they share lands on the mental map for them as we head into this next question um do you want Q&A between each round or do you want us to hold our questions to the end at least four that's a great question maybe it feels like uh per round maybe it makes more sense just so it feels relevant and we can not lose our track train of thought isn't that okay the first question is about this round sure yeah my first question is um is there a succession plan for Leila's position for next year year after yes there is right now as vice president we have Shiloh Lake she's a very big member in our community she's captain of the varsity girls basketball team captain of the varsity girls softball team and she does camp counseling she's a huge member of the community and we have Sierra as you know her second up we also have Adrienne which is also in 11th grader and Ryan um so we have many for next year who would love to be president we also for the year after that we have a lot of 10th graders and we do have one 9th grader who would love to become president so I do have a succession plan we're doing fundraising right now to kind of keep that plan in place and keep these things going on um but yeah there is a succession plan thank you so it's more like a club it's not just you and your senior project it's not that you made a club that's going to be sustainable yes that's great any other questions about the stuff that the student shared are going really well right now positive things I just wanted to compliment you on recognizing that if you called people's names you might get that response that would be negative because I think I think of myself at your age I've never been to my home now granted that was when we grew dinosaurs just a lot of really I'm still complimenting people great we'll head into round two so for the second question what feels hard and unsafe and less positive at are you right now do you want to start? okay um so I'm trying to like think of like how to organize it I think um one thing that I've like seen a lot and heard a lot from students is when like other students are making them feel unsafe um there's not really a lot done about it and it continues to still be an environment that they do not want to be in um because these things keep happening over and over again um I think that's a big one I just like not enough is being done um for that I think in addition just like I feel like there's just sort of like a lack of awareness surrounding a bunch of things in the school um and that's something I think we're hoping to fix I think that's something Lord that's something we are working on in racial justice is like how to bring more awareness to a bunch of different topics that people don't know about causing these things these are like things to keep happening and or if teachers are not able to intervene because they don't know that something is not like that shouldn't be happening like they don't recognize that as like um like an act of oppression towards somebody and so they aren't doing anything about it and that's something we want to change um and I feel like the other thing is maybe there's like sort of a lack of communication between like um like higher admin like the school board or superintendent just like about some things or like policies they're creating that will directly affect students um like we don't like there was there's talk of an equity policy starting to be put in place and I only found out about it like like this is a process that's starting from like a couple other people I had no idea because there wasn't a way that it was like broadcast to people and so I think making sure like students have input on things would be good because not having that input like this make it makes students and easy because there's all these decisions being made about them that they don't have any control over that's all yeah and I agree with you we are working on microaggressions in racial justice um things that are just normal everyday things that people who aren't very that aren't educated on the topic so saying things towards say you see a BIPOC student and you love their hair it's not my hair texture it's not sierra's and you go up to touch it like without asking that's obviously a microaggression that we're not supposed to do and you might not see it as a microaggression because you're just not educated on it yet and so I think that what we can do in the school community is really start teaching about these little nitpicky things that students feel unsafe for um personally for me I've been told by a teacher that my exotic babies would be amazing to bring back to our you um I don't know the teacher's name I don't really know a lot of teachers here but I was walking the hallways with my boyfriend Pablo and I was told that to my face and it's like a me you're exotic baby oh yeah so um my boyfriend Pablo is a Mexican man so what they met by exotic babies was bringing like it's a stereotype towards Latin American people like oh you're so exotic because you're not white and you're from somewhere different so just little things like that around the school like I've heard so much little things that just add up there's teachers that have said oh I know you know how to salsa oh I bet you like tacos and you know it's it's it's just stereotypes that people just aren't taught about I don't think that it's just I don't think that they're racist and I don't dislike the teachers for it I do think that they need to be educated and I think that that's the raw and the root of the problem in a lot of these situations is that teachers and students are educated and off on this stuff because we don't have a lot of BIPOC students to educate the teachers and be like that's wrong and we don't and you know all I'm white Sierra's white a lot of us all of us in here are white right and it's hard for a white person to teach another white person about BIPOC issues because I know about BIPOC issues but I don't know BIPOC issues in myself so it's really hard to teach that and like Sierra said about discipline I do think that discipline is really I don't think it's at its best in this school I think that it's hard to discipline kids and when you have a very small community because one thing goes wrong and just everything goes wrong and it's it or you tell a kid no and they're like I'm just going to walk out then they walk out like I've seen that before and I really do think it's not the teacher's fault and it's not ad demands fault I really think that we as students and we as a community need to start putting down these boundaries first and start telling teachers this is how you discipline a kid without crossing the line because if you look at it from like a point of view I'm not from here I'm from Georgia discipline in Georgia is a lot different from discipline here we had ISS OSS we have pink slips if you get too many it was a lot of stuff that they had in place that teachers had in place that we were all taught about from day one in school we read through the handbooks all together and advisory we knew what the disciplines and the consequences were and I think that's what we need in this equity policy is we need a fine line between what's right and wrong and a fine line between what how do you get in school suspension and how what is the difference between just talking back to a teacher and you know walking out of the classroom and being like fu you know out of nowhere and I think that's do I do agree with sierra is that what that's what we need is we need more discipline for kids who don't understand or that act out and we need while they're we're disciplining them I think they need to be taught that certain things that they say aren't okay like if you're vividly or outwardly racist to someone you should not only be disciplined for that because towards one student because that's bullying either way but you need to be taught like this is why this is bad and we're not just telling you this is bad because the other student feels bad about it like look at it from this way and maybe students would you know we'd be a more tight-knit community that way and I think just sort of asking about like discipline is like just a sort of sort of like goes across the board and what students kind of like see like as a student I see like things or like students saying things doing things and then I see them like get called to the office get called to have a meeting with a teacher or go talk to some other adult and then two days later they're doing the same thing over and over again and it's just like the as a student you're like okay you're trying to like make this safer for the students around you but like it's not working so I think like we forgot what's not working because something isn't. Are there any questions from community members regarding some of the things that the students share? Well first I just want to say I shared some of your feedback I've heard the need for more discipline not just to make people feel safer in classrooms but it's also a distraction from your learning in the academics so I'm glad you brought that up. My question is I had heard about a policy around like a way to anonymously report microaggressions or not even microaggressions and I'm just curious from your perspective has people been using that? Has students been using that? Is it effective? Is it too soon to know? Is it worth keeping in place? I just don't know a lot about it. I think it was something relatively new this year. Personally I don't think people use it because I think put your shoes into a person that's being bullied and you talk and you know that this person has been bullying you and maybe you brought it up and it just hasn't been fixed. Anonymous is really hard because that can get sent in not just for students but for teachers and for people who are investigating it. Personally I had investigation and it's multiple steps it's not just you know oh this happened it's multiple steps of going through asking multiple times what happened are you sure this happened and then coming back together and I think as anonymous it's really hard for administration and for investigators to really get into what happened because it is anonymous so how like if they don't do names or they don't say names and they're just like this person's been bullying me this is what they said how do they know it's true to a certain extent because it's online and anyone could say that like I can go on and be like Sierra just bullied me right now in front of everybody but they don't know me and they don't know you guys like they can't prove that and they can't get in Sierra in trouble for that so I think the anonymous it works it in my opinion I don't think it will work in the future because of the lack of evidence that it has for investigating towards bullying and investigating through our bullying policy yeah I think there's definitely something we said about like you know a student can say something happened but then like if that doesn't give enough information that students not comfortable like fully coming forward or like if that student doesn't put a name down then nothing really gets done about it and I think also like things like from like my experience so I'm a new student this year and like I've seen some things but like the most I don't know everybody most of the people I know are like in my grade I know a few 10 graders a couple seniors um it's like if I see something else I it's hard for me to be like oh I saw so and so doing this thing when I'm like I don't know who that is I just like see all these things happening but I don't know like how to really like it's hard to put like anonymous report because like I don't even if I like if I don't know like the names of the person it's hard to like report something that's going on because I don't know who it is so when when teachers who are like around and see the same things don't do anything then it falls on the students but then like I don't know who that is there's just that kid in that class that I'm not in and so I think that's definitely challenging about that those are great answers in case that you can go ahead with somebody else you know go ahead we went at the same time but I I'm still formulating my questions. I have a couple things one is when you talked about microaggressions and like people going up and touching the student's hair um to me that's just rude I mean I wouldn't I've known Karen for 20 years I wouldn't just go up and touch her hair without asking her and it has nothing to do with her hair being a different kind of hair from what I'm used to and I wonder how much one of the things that's needed I don't know how this would happen but it's like basic manners and then it gets it gets exacerbated sorry when um you know when it does involve something like somebody not understanding that of course we shouldn't assume that because somebody is latin that like salsa or whatever you know um so I it feels to me like somehow there may need to be education for students and teachers alike and how to set personal boundaries in a way so that if somebody comes and touches your hair you have a way to say I'm not comfortable with that without a without starting something that becomes then you get fully for it or something like that that feels to me like and I think sort of the same the same lines with discipline I hear a lot about nothing happens or discipline as in punishment but really what what needs to happen to create an atmosphere where people stop themselves from doing rude things because they have respect for other people and that feels to me like there's a huge respect missing students towards teachers people towards you know trans students towards you know people of color students towards and in my experience both as an adult observer of kids and as a kid myself it almost doesn't matter if there's nothing overt that's different a bully's still gonna bully so how do we how do we create rather than a punishment to make somebody just more resentful and and and be meaner how do we somehow create an atmosphere where there's greater respect and a greater understanding of boundaries and and and rudeness so actually um I'm going to answer your second question first we do have something put in place last year I had when I first moved here I had food thrown at me and I didn't know who anyone was it was horrible and this like little transactions kept on happening between me and this other person and so I from day one I would go to JK and I'd be like I do not like this girl no matter what you say like I'm never gonna ever like her and then we finally got back to the investigation it was investigated for the food but it was weird because at the end of the day we did a circle and she came out and she said I was being an a-hole and that was just me being me was none of your business was none of your fault and we're on good terms now like we don't have I don't hate her she doesn't hate me and it was like this monster taken off of my back because I was like yeah I did say things back to you and that wasn't right I just wanted to get clarification and I do think that's a good thing that we have put in place but I also think that you know in this situation it worked amazing right I haven't gotten bullied from that same person after that and I think it's because we are peers and you know she's also in my grade and I think that was like a mutual understanding like we just want a senior year that's normal we don't want any beef we just want to be able to sit on the same bus for senior trip and take the same picture without having to you know you know argue and I think that that works that is something that works really well but can also work not very well like it just depends on certain people just like how some learning types are really great for certain people some people love just sitting there and taking notes and then taking a test the day after personally for me I'm a hands-on learner it's I think it's just about what people are not comfortable with but what they learn from yeah and I think um part of the reason it worked might have been that you set a boundary by talking to the adults about it and that results in something happening and once you set that boundary I suspect that she felt a different kind of respect for you because you set a boundary and I and I I know I just want to say one thing about investigations because I've been involved with lots of school systems and I've seen situations where the investigation it becomes its own thing and it almost I mean like why are you investigating investigating yeah you want to you want to get some facts and you don't want somebody to get away with it but we don't need to go into every who did this one was it your fault because you said that and you're you know I've seen that like really almost bully the kids even more by the adults doing investigation so I sort of feel like sometimes beyond the minimum moving out of an investigation quickly into some sort of getting communication and people talking about their limits and their boundaries and that stuff might be and I totally agree with you um on the same note I think that investigations shouldn't take we have a deadline for investigations unless it has to be pushed back say because the boiler broke over we have a few snow days um but I do I agree with you on the fact that investigation shouldn't take a long time because it then it gets just anxiety but I also disagree on the fact that we I think we should have investigations I think that's a big part of figuring out not blaming the students like who did this and why did they do that but figuring out what happened in the whole so the person who does the circle or your counselor knows how it all started um and I think that's a really big thing on like getting past old beef or drama um because you can these the people around you know what happened and how you felt or what others seen from that situation um on the other note for your first question you had like a while ago um and I bet you want to answer this question too I think that setting boundaries is an amazing thing um and I think that that's you know it's a really good thing to learn um but in high school when you're working things out yourself it's really hard unless you're an outgoing person to say I don't like that like stop in front of a group of people and I think that it's not not only for you know kids like me and Sierra but I think it's a lot to ask you know BIPOC students to call out and LGBTQ students to call out these microaggressions when they happen because for me personally when I was told the things that I was told I didn't say anything it was a teacher or even like a student at first you're just like you get that shock you're like whoa you just said that to me I don't feel like we should pressure like shy students or even BIPOC students to set these boundaries I didn't mean to create any impression it's not necessarily saying in the moment you set that boundary necessarily but that you find a way for you it was going to the adults and having the circle or I mean there but but that that the shy people and the the people who are who struggle with that are the ones who most need a lot of options for how to set boundaries I'm not I'm not saying yeah let's call out everything when it happens I'm yeah just like yeah but but just that that the whole student body gets some options of how they can set boundaries and how the adults can help. Yeah and I totally agree with you with that. Yeah I think that's a big thing and like it's much like a couple months so like I think with like when you're like talking about like discipline I feel like at least when what I'm talking about discipline I don't mean like okay if you do this thing again you're going to get suspended from school are you going to if you do like this many times you're going to expel not like that like hardcore you're going to like those type of punishments more like and maybe punishment feels like a weird or like a weird word for that but like I don't know like the right word but like figuring out how to like contain these situations and have them not happen again I was like that's sort of like what I'm thinking about when I think of like discipline and then as far as like just like there's tends to be like a missing like respect just for some people part of that like I think is a lot of just like lack of education and a lot of these instances of hate are just born from ignorance and I think finding like finding ways in the school to just incorporate that so then the students who like that is happening to don't have to deal with it on their own and don't have to be the ones to come forward um well I think that would be really beneficial because it shouldn't all fall on those students to have to call out fine teachers all of that it should just be already it needs to be a systemic way for everybody yes yeah that they can figure out how to get to treat it and I um we've been learning something and I've been learning something from jk it's intent versus impact and it has helped a lot I well at least with me I know that it's helped a lot of our seniors too and we've been trying to spread the word as much as possible because I don't think when we hear things from teachers like that I don't automatically think that teacher is racist I'm not like oh my gosh that teacher is just downright racist you know confederate flag like I'm not like that it's more of like a we are a small state are they educated look where they grow up look how they grew up look at this community and look at how many educational things that you can find in runoff about that stuff because there's very little and I think that with the racial justice class we're kind of trying to change that in the school um we're trying to you know try to teach these to the teachers and the students and I think that's a big part is I I think I think at least we understand is like when we say like teachers said something that wasn't right we're not like saying that that teacher is automatically racist raises for the rest of their life obviously not um something that I've been told a lot since I moved here because when I moved here I didn't know a lot about the state and coming from a state with a lot of population and a lot more BIPOC students it was weird hearing teachers say that and just like being no such a lot and I would go to my mom and be like this teacher just said this today and it was like out of nowhere um and my mom would be like they're not it's not because they're downright racist is because they're not taught the same thing that I was taught or the same way that she was taught because they weren't really there was no openings to teach um it's really hard for a white person to teach another white person on BIPOC issues like I said and so I don't think it's about like this community being racist or this community being republican or whatever it is that everyone wants to say it is I just think it's because it's a small town and we don't have a lot of students that are minorities it's not a lot of diversity yeah so yeah definitely agree with all that um there's just like just a lack of lack of awareness lack of knowledge so I think this is a good segue to enter into our next round um did you have the question um go ahead it was actually pretty similar to what you were I mean I guess my question I feel like it's I feel like it's pretty similar to what you asked so I'll hold back okay um and this is uh we'll start with the student and this would definitely encourage community members to partake in this next round in conversation but what are the ways okay so I'll share sort of the next three questions so that you can get your your thoughts organized what are the ways in which the school community can support students to feel safe in the building what are the ways the community can support that effort and then there's a question that I would like us all to to consider but like what are actual action steps what can be our next steps forward to provide that that's that feeling of security that something is being done so that the repeat offenders are do not continue offending um so again what are the ways in which the school community can support students um I had an interview with the RTCC members the other day and I and they asked me that same question and I think that for me and for my thought process the way the community can at least help us in our school if my parents not going against each other all the time it's always one parent doesn't like this parent because this parent thinks of this political ideology and this one doesn't I think that's what tears our community apart is that we're split right down the middle and so at these forums not this one but at forums last year about the BLM flag it was one side versus the other this side versus that whenever this the locker room situation happened it was this political ideology versus this but instead of that thinking I think the community we should all come together and think about put all of that aside put of all your beliefs of a side and think what is safe for our students right now what is safe for them to be able to go to school and not think that something is going to happen because there was a news outbreak all nationally and there was threats nationally around the country and I think that that's something great that's okay that's great to think about because it's putting everything that you believe aside and coming together as one community because no matter what you think and no matter what you believe your children are going to school together like there's no way of getting past that we're not splitting the school in half but who believes in this let's do separate classrooms like your kids have been in school together since kindergarten they're gonna be in school together unless you move until 12th grade there's no this and or buts about it I think that we really do need to just come together as a community and just put everything else aside from the school I think the exact same thing students need to just put it all aside and think about something else because there's no it's always I believe in this against I believe in that and it's never going to work out I think that we can have conversations about boundaries and we can have conversations about hey don't say that without bringing political ideology into it there's okay way to set the boundaries and be like I don't like when you say that because it just makes me uncomfortable well being like I don't like that you said that because you're a Trump fan and I don't like Trump it's you see how differently that sounds and how differently that could be taken into context and can be taken into consideration because if someone was like I don't like you because of blank because of this political ideology that you have I probably wouldn't listen to them because they're just going against my beliefs just because that's that's the only reason why I hate me but if they went up to me like Leila you're making me uncomfortable because that was really mean what you said to me earlier today um I just didn't that didn't make me feel comfortable in school it's different from saying it made me uncomfortable because you're believing this and it made me comfortable believe you and believe in that and I think that's how we can get together with students and community I think definitely like there's like the whole thing about like common ground like all students are going to the school all students have to you know deal with being with each other all day there's going to be incidents whether it's an instance of oppression with like a student part of a marginalized group or just two students are arguing at lunch over something to happen in class or you know something like that that you know there there should be the common ground of just wanting all your students to feel safe I think also I mean this could go for like school community and just the rest of the community just have a willingness to learn and which is it's really hard it's really hard to accept that like something that you thought might not be beneficial to everybody in school or like might be hurting somebody and that's hard to admit that but I think when people are willing to actually learn then they can learn and learn from their mistakes and therefore like grow and be better in the future to not harm people in that way and I think that's something that a lot of people in the school are really having a hard time with and I think because so much of it is not talked about in like curriculum it's just all talked about in these outside instances and it's not like embedded in school and I feel like that's something like maybe having I don't know how good curriculum gets formed or whatever but having teachers and like admin like back curriculum changes in order to start um putting these ideas into school that will like make people be willing to learn and like accept new ideas um and I think like definitely with students finding a common ground is good and something like you you may not you don't need to like like somebody or like their ideas but as long as you can just be like civil in a school setting that's I think what people need to be able to do and obviously if there is an instance where somebody is you know using their like views against you then being able to report that is and having the school like back you and support you and that is really important to have. I think it's fair to you know invite everyone into the conversation in these two rounds just thinking about based on what you've heard from the students what do you think that the school could be doing better to to make all students feel safe and maybe as community members what role do you have in supporting the school by attending these forums for example that shows support of all students as well. So that's kind of just a question for us all to consider before I'll slap another piece of paper up there to maybe talk about actionable steps. I have a question so both of you kind of talked about how a lot of the issues from what I'm hearing are coming from like different sides or opposing views does the school and you might and I just don't know does the school have a debate club where you could actually these the kids can be taught how to effectively communicate with one another and try to deliver their point of view without bringing in emotion or you know like solid evidence. We do have a debate club it's not it's not about that though the debate club from last year they wrote up an essay about something and debated it to judges to go on to the next round. I don't think we have an actual debate club that's broadcasted just to learn about how to debate and how to you know come in and be like Sierra this is why we don't agree on this and no emotions just these are my facts these are my you know these are the facts these are the resources your turn like we don't have that um if I if I can interject I feel like are teaching about those discussion like we have discussion norms that exist across classrooms like I know that these hang in my classroom to help frame discussions I think our avenue as opposed to debate looks like the skills we build from seventh and eighth grade onward to prepare students to participate in what we call like socratic seminar so the ability to arrive at a conversation prepared with a claim supported by evidence and with like sound reasoning to continue the conversation so when there's a lull I can interject my next idea or and do so very respectfully working with primarily 11th and 12th graders I can say for certainty that like the groundwork is laid by my colleagues at grade seven eight nine 10 and 11 so that when I am assigning a Socratic seminar I have one tomorrow I like I can sit back and with you know Penn and my student names making sure that they hit the criteria for like how I want the discussion to run and it is a fine-tuned machine they have practiced but it's also focused on their attitude towards Hemingway's novel do they exhibit and showcase those same skills when it becomes a more politically or socially charged issue no and it seems that the parents of the community at times also lose their ability to like really hone those discussion skills when things become a really really emotionally charged so there is a place for it that lives in our curriculum and I think that is actually quite well practiced but then I think I think the situations that they're talking about don't exist in that very academic setting right but happen in hallways passing and in bathrooms and in the cafeteria where the structure falls away a little bit and then it's a super unsatisfying experience for students where they feel like nothing is happening if there were whether it's a debate club or or you know something if there were more formal within the school discussions of things like like hot issues and trans issues and things and this is maybe a question for you one how much do you think you would get backlash from the parents in those two sets of divisions is that is that even doable in this day and age and I'm saying that not about just just about the school with the whole country and that's where we're can we do that can we have those conversations and not have teachers getting fired or you know I think that is a good question like how do we do that and do it safely yeah so that we're not causing more harm than good through this academic exercise and I feel like so many of these issues have become so politicized beyond like our wildest imaginations if you asked me six years ago about this that that I think it is really hard to know what the first steps would be for that Katie may have a differing perspective but I think you have to be so incredibly careful and not even I mean you mentioned teachers getting fired but I think about kids for whom being a part of that conversation or being an audience to that conversation are more harmed than helped by that conversation yeah I guess I would add that we used to you know I think we used to be very and we still are like deliberate in our purposeful planning and scaffolding up to something like that so as JK was talking about like using the Socratic seminar and being very mindful and aligned in the way in which we introduce the related skills the research skills the you know presentation skills the ability to use some of what you're talking about in terms of debate and problem solving and the ability to pivot and transition and have those be safe topics like you know you start with like dogs versus cats and then you just kind of like work your way up I just heard you just say dogs and I thought you think that's starting alone dogs dogs but I think as Lisa noted it is it was impossible for us to anticipate what the current climate is and and and what that ability to pivot entails now is different than it used to be because now you're not necessarily on solid footing when you're introducing evidence to a conversation like that right yep and so I think it has led us to have to really re-envision and rethink how we do scaffold up to a conversation like that in a way that is safe and takes into account all of the perspectives of the individuals who are in the space together because now we're also having to be very mindful of the different experiences that our students and our educators have had that have led us to where we are and it's hard to to to calibrate and to really be able to to feel that certainty that we're having a productive safe academic discussion that is going to yield a really valuable learning experience for everyone yeah in a school board meeting I heard several different people at different times say I don't believe in trans and to a trans person is that saying what you don't believe in me it's like saying I don't believe in right-handed you know or I don't believe in tall like if it's who somebody is and somebody's beliefs are it doesn't exist what do you even do with that yeah go ahead um I I think with that it's not just about it's not just about people's personal beliefs on you know trans rights or you know LGBTQ rights I think it's more about you know us all in high school going through that puberty point and going to that point of like no matter who's in the locker room we're all uncomfortable yeah because we're all learning and growing about ourselves and I think to parents and do what I think it's like you know a function goes off in your head where it's like you know I don't think these parents that aren't taught about it understand and I think all that these parents here is when their daughter comes home and I'm not saying it's right but when their daughter comes home and says this trans students in the bathroom and it's making me uncomfortable it's like that light bulb it's like it's not about like oh that other girl is in the bathroom it's like as soon as it flicks on it's like there's a guy in the bathroom and even though they don't you know identify as a guy that's what flicks on because your daughter just came home and said she's uncomfortable this is a new day and age this is a new learning this is a new everything for anyone um and I think that going through these things and especially me being a senior and going through that as you know coming into ninth grade and having to change in the locker rooms in front of everybody at first and I just see all these other girls and I'm like oh my gosh like this is so uncomfortable like I think that it's really hard for everyone in the locker room and adding on this new type of learning that you need to like come into and you need to like I this new learning that a lot of people aren't taught about it's really hard for parents to be like I'm you know what is that you know like all I know is that yes that she's trans but she has different genitalia and I think that's what comes up a lot in these conversations about the trans student being in the locker room is that she has different genitalia and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable not because you know I think things that are said can be transphobic but I do think that it's because they're they don't know because it is something new like these parents didn't go to school with people who were trans like you know you know they've learned about you know people being a part of the lgbtq community but trans is starting to become a very new and broad thing that's happening around the country and I think that it's not just about beliefs and it's not about oh you don't believe in me but it's also you know you got to respect some people's religions um last year we had a student named Muhammad he was a foreign exchange student he was an amazing student he seen both sides of every story no matter what um Mr. Kelman had him in his class and we always had discussions about things in AP us history like what is this and why is it you got like a Socratic seminar it was more detailed though because it was AP us history so we did talk about you know Native Americans and you know people coming over and one of the things that we talked about me and Muhammad in side of like a group was like how do you learn about trans because in his country and in his religion that's not a thing not because they're transphobic because that's the beliefs that they were built on and i don't think it's about them being like i think some things can be transphobic but i don't think like these really christian and catholic and beliefs are spread across every to every christian and catholic person um but hearing from Muhammad saying like yeah trans people are cool i just you know personally i don't believe that that is from if they were Muslim i wouldn't believe that they were muslim because that's a part of my belief and i don't think it's about i don't think you should tell people that in public if you do believe that i don't think you should go up to a trans person be like i don't believe you sorry but i think you should keep that to yourself but at the same time when these parents i think when i think about it is like when i think about these parents and obviously i'm i've talked to amity and i have a lot of trans friends it's i just learned about it last year when i moved here um but i think that when these parents hear that that's all they hear is like there's another dude in the locker room is there a dude in the locker room even though it's not what they think it's different it's just caught on that way and it makes it this more uncomfortable thing of like i have to learn about this like this makes me uncomfortable because i never had to learn about this and i don't know a lot of trans people you know and it's just like i don't want to say they're forced in the setting of having to learn and grow but they're forced into the setting of having to learn and grow it is probably good learning to learn how to like deal and cope without being transphobic and to be like this is a true thing like this is what people believe and this is what people are um but being able to learn how to respect other people's beliefs without being like going going to the news and spreading across america that all these a lot like it's i think that we did i not to defend anybody but i do think it's about like not not them believing in that person but them not knowing or their beliefs on religion or their beliefs growing up were different and i think it's really hard to learn out of religious and you know beliefs that you know as a kid i'm just going to for the sake of our time which is do we have a tie at end time seven o'clock okay um to think about like refocusing our our brainstorming on action steps um so as you were talking i was and seara some of the things that you've mentioned um have been just like you know ignorance breeds fear and hate um so raising awareness for our students so that they again can learn not to make the same offenses over and over again um teacher i i can wholeheartedly say that i think teachers are resistant to interjecting their voices for the same reasons you've mentioned if we don't have a relationship with i teach primarily 11th and 12th graders if i hear something of a middle school student like i am also playing a fine you know like doing the fine dance of like okay like when i interject this is going to establish our relationship so like what does that look like because i'm either like going to be hated the rest of the time the student is here or this is a like a chance for learning and i think that just in the moment if i'm still debating that i might have missed my teaching moment as i'm like playing that out um and i think teachers need more tools i can say going through a master's program that like to be equipped to deal with microaggressions is like an add-on that has been part of not my curriculum 12 years ago but from like the last five years and you can either attend those PDs or not you have to choose to want to learn and protect your students and raise your voice and interrupt the behavior and it's easier to close your door and focus on your classroom um and then of course for parents like i brought this tool tonight um and i had thought about and had talked to the administration like months ago um to like offer this tool as a way for community members also to reframe their thinking before interjecting in a board meeting a community forum the superintendent's forum etc um because i like i'm ready and willing to have these tricky conversations with my students but like they i'm hoping that this is a tool for them to to not immediately jump at the first initial response but to think about it to see where it lands on this mental map for them and for it to be a tool so that they are if they choose to say in this community like functioning and civil members of the community that you know might have their kids come to school here someday and contribute to the forums the way you all are today so um you know raising awareness for parents to just reminding them of discussion norms um and then approaching these conversations especially when we get to hear from our student volunteers with like a curious growth mindset so that we can learn about the school and just be in the practice of learning does anyone else want to offer any ideas for action steps so i have a couple of thoughts and they are also some questions they're kind of woven together um are you all involved in doing any kind of bystander training at all on the in the school where you um help students to understand how to if i'm a bystander and i'm seeing something happen what can i do has anybody been given that set of tools at the school not in a very long time so i think bystander training can be really really helpful for our community if you are all in agreement that that part of the challenge for students is how do you hold one another accountable how do you all have your own responsibilities to hold each other accountable but then the same thing for the teachers right you know and the administrators bystander training can help you too so if as a community in the high school you all go through that and i appreciate what sierra said about curriculum right curriculum can really make a difference it doesn't have to be in classroom curriculum but it can be you know extra curricular curriculum that kind of helps people understand what that means so i think i think bystander training is important then having difficult conversations training is also i think really important and i'm not sure if you've all done that here in some elements or not but that's something that you can take to your students to your faculty and staff but then also that these are the kinds of training opportunities you can also do at community forums for community members too but it looks like you have your hand yeah i was actually going to say that student uh campus life was actually trying to plan or getting ready to plan i know i talked to you about this about doing like an anti-bullying assembly or a bystander assembly and i know because a lot of schools do do it like my school in georgia we had assembly at least twice a year about bystanders and bullying and we had guests come in and you know some of the guests were like not famous but they like did cool things and they were like i was bullied once and then everyone would be like yeah that's cool like let's not bully people because look at who's been bullied like this cool awesome guy that can do skateboard tricks has been bullied and i think it's like we should do that too like have like maybe like an assembly where the whole school gets together and be like here's an anti-bullying thing and then kind of incorporate not hands on but some fun stuff in it so it's not like oh i got to go to this anti-bullying assembly today i'm just gonna fall asleep or be on my phone and so it's like kind of like and in between where it's like an anti-bullying assembly and not like a prep rally but kind of like a let's bring everyone together and talk about this really hard issue i love what you're what you're saying because it's focusing on like positives and i think that's where change can really come is when you start to see a pathway to to something better right and so if we if being part of raising awareness and and and having something um and teaching people it's not just about each individual thing but why do you want to have a good community why do you want to have like uh you know good feelings between different people and like if we could help people to have that motivation to have good community and good will for one another and just beautiful feelings for each other and like so i don't know if that's like bringing in motivational speakers and painting a picture somehow for everyone to see what that would feel like but they start to begin to because they need to have that motivation before they can even want to learn to be different you know there needs to be a reason so uh yeah i don't know what you're saying yeah just building up what you're saying karen you know i think i was wondering kind of hearing some of this conversation of like do are there ways we need to find to do a better job of sort of not just thinking about how do we deal with transgressions as they arise but articulating where the line is both on the like really micro level in our classrooms but also on the macro level like in our community and our district and i think part and parcel of that is also like like yeah well how can we make more opportunities and kind of more ways of expressing what our common values are and making that into more of our community events so they're not just like words at the beginning of the handbook but yeah and i think that yeah so that they can become things that we refer to as we are you know providing rational for why we are doing things as a school you know i was thinking about like you know the sort of the issue of people who are uncomfortable with transgender people being in the same space as them or questioning their existence and it's sort of thinking about like to me it's very much the same principle that we apply to students who come from different faith backgrounds right which is like yes of course you get to be muslim Mormon you know Jewish atheists whatever at school we're not going to debate that aspect of your identity you know and so because that what i what i see as kind of what you're talking about that the politicization of so much of you know our society yeah it makes it really hard i think it makes it like as someone who's trying to teach students about anything i teach social studies so like double where i'll be there that like the without like a clear sort of like collective articulation of where those lines are where those goals are it's hard to feel empowered to do anything that might be risky and at this point that could be anything so i think i think like i see that as really urgent because i i think that otherwise whatever becomes political becomes off limits and that leaves us in a place where we're not actually teaching kids what they need to know you know and we're not we're not even teach we're not even asking the questions that they need to think about right even you know regardless of the answers we're provided say i when you're you've been talking this evening um i hear a great willingness on your part to be understanding of where people are coming from and when i think about for instance and you know well the the locker room issue you know right away from the beginning the language that was being used was there's a man in the locker room it's a girl's locker room and a 14 year old man and but the parents who heard that all they care about is their kids safety and they hear there's a man in the locker room and the rest of it doesn't even matter how do they get how can they get past the fear that that you have because you want your kids to be safe these parents are wanting the very best for their kids and some of the way that that happened prevented them from hearing what they need to hear because ignorance does lead to fear in addition to which in this community we've had some pretty traumatic stuff happen where kids were not safe and it became publicly clear that kids have not always been safe and um i think that that also contributes to that instant reaction when i when when people hear there's a man in the locker room and that we need to be able to address that yeah i think um definitely like being able to like yeah like have these like hard conversations where people are willing to just like talk about it and like learn is very important yeah um i think another thing that like as far as like action steps go um as there is you know talk of the like equity policy being put in place that like might require some teacher like more teacher training on how to deal with these things how to like open up these conversations to students and all that i think like something community members could do is like show support for that so it is clear that many people in the community want something like this to happen and making that support known um so it's can actually something like this can actually be put in place yeah and i yeah i agree with you and on our personal account like being someone who has to be on both sides can be very positive and it's very good for you um i it was very good for me so as campus life president and you're throwing these events for everyone you kind of have to be on like the middle of both views of people when you're told things because as soon as you say i agree with amity boom half the school doesn't want to go to your events there they are miserable at prep rallies because they know campus life supports one side over theirs so as campus life members i have told my members like the first meeting we've ever had or like a few after i told i was like i sat them down and i was like if you say anything about anything that happened that is negative and if you respond to anyone with a negative intent no matter if it's Blake no matter if it's Amity no matter whoever it is let's try not to use sorry yeah no matter if it's either side of the story like you're automatically out because i understand both sides right like i don't think the things that focus on actions that's yeah yeah um yeah i think that we as a school need to just be together as a community because it gets really hard when we're not and it gets really hard in school when you have to wonder like who is coming to the school today and who is threatening us you know because it especially nationally um i think an action step is to just i know you guys try to keep it on the down low like when things happen obviously because it can strike fear but i also on the other hand think that you guys should maybe email the parents a little bit more when things like that happen like oh hey guys today we had to like ship down our phone lines because you know we were getting a little and not so like parents don't have to hear from their kids and then it's like their kids say something completely different that's like kind of on the same track that they heard from another friend that that friend heard a teacher talking about and it's just like a whole line of things and since we're such a tight knit community it's really hard to when you hear something it's kind of like the game telephone it's like you hear something and then you try to mimic it back and it's exactly what it is in this tight knit community because everyone has connections to everyone and as soon as it gets out to one person it gets out to 10 and then it's just it's just full on out by then and i think like one of those things is like communicating with parents more and trying to tell students in like like not in a better tone but trying to tell students like not everything obviously but trying to tell students like you know this happened but do it in like a way where it won't strike fear right because then if you don't tell them and it like comes out it strikes more fear um after school we were here after school for theater auditions and we heard that there was a lockdown and we all thought that it was just a bear outside per usual but it was actually someone coming into the school or trying to come into the school or something we heard from vine we're in the theater room for 10 minutes like is it a bear like um i got pushed out of a room with windows so then i was like oh god like i was texting my mom it was i that was the most fear i've ever had in this school because of the unknown right in the being of like is it a bear or since we're like on this national tv's you know and we're on this national thing is it a shooter like what is this because we are a public school and it is i don't want to say it's getting more common but it's more easy to do bad things so i think that having that you know balance of being like trying to say it safe like say like this is what's happening right now and trying to communicate more when these things happen i think things that are communicated to parents should also be communicated to students because i know a lot of emails that go out from the school just go to the parents a lot of emails from like admins who attended all that just go to parents so for example that time in the theater um we didn't know what was going on and i guess they said like an email wasn't to parents being like oh this was something where like taking safety precautions but like you know update you soon everything should be fine we never got that email so like i was relying on you texting your mom like trying to figure out what was going on because we never got that email yeah and so then i didn't find out the full story until like i got home and i was able to like hear what my dad like with the email that he got so i think a lot of that thing also just didn't communicate to students and i think sometimes it's thought of as like well we should protect our students or like you know keep them out of it it's not really to worry but like it's our school we're in the school and if things are being told to parents we should also know what's going on and be and have that same communication because it is the school we are in and our environment reflect that what i'm hearing from leila is uh and from seara vote is a desire for transparency and that's that's really important right i mean and there's we all know that there's a certain set of things that can't be communicated but you know nobody is hurt by over communication like you might be like oh gosh Lisa and Katie are sending another email okay but then you read it right nobody's hurt by that what we are hurt by is if we don't have information right because then that has people speculate and and fill in the blanks and the gaps in their own way whether it's from one point of view or another point of view or from personal experiences right and so my advice for an action plan is over communicate and i agree with you i think that when parents get calls from their kids saying like we're in lockdown the teacher doesn't know what's happening it's after school like like we said earlier like that's all that here and then it's like uh oh my gosh i have to go to school like especially what's everything happening like i don't know how my mom felt but i know she was like what leila what and like the data was kind of bad so the messages were getting in late and then i was like mom like i don't know what's happening so it was like miscommunication all over and then my mom like i bet she was like she was filled with anxiety like she called me like a million times that i didn't get it because the data and it was just like you said like just miscommunication and it really really is hard for students and teachers because i was in an adrenaline rush i was like talking to her i was like we gotta get out of here like what are our exit plan like what are we gonna do throw a chair and then my mom's calling me and i'm not getting it through and all she's thinking is like oh my god my daughter just said they're in lockdown now she's not calling me back like there's something wrong and i think that that's yeah i totally agree with you i have a question um i a lot of these action steps are great i love the anti bullying assembly idea and the bystander training i mean all of it are really good ideas i just i kind of want to know coming from like this is our second year here so the restorative circle process is new like never heard of it before until we moved here how how effective are they and for those repeat offenders like there has to obviously if there's issues going on in the school there's going to be repeat offenders that are going to these circles that are coming out and doing the same thing again what is is there a set kind of like consequence like order that's going to happen after restorative circle because also back to what this lady was saying earlier about you know shy kids maybe not being able to set boundaries i would not want to set boundaries if i knew that they were going to go to restorative circle come out go to restorative circle and come out and they're still here like i wouldn't say anything so i'm just wondering how effective are they and if there is you know and it's known through the students and the faculty what happens to these students if they are not you know i don't want to say rehabilitated but you know if they don't come out on the positive end after these meetings yeah i think i think what we can say is that there has to be a willingness from the students to engage in that intervention so there's never going to be anything compelled by the school to say this is a part of the consequence you have to engage in the restorative circle because it's not restorative if that is the case and our desire is never to set up a situation that causes more harm and if the students are not willing to engage in that intervention there is that potential the restorative process is separate and apart from the disciplinary okay process so the disciplinary process would happen regardless okay and then the restoration is something that we facilitate upon the willingness of the participants to engage in it and then we're really thoughtful about who is there and i'm sure jk will add more to this because she's facilitated a lot of our circles because that piece is incredibly important too who's in the room you know not only you know the willing participants to be there but also the people who they may identify as people they'd like to be there to be supportive and then we have to go through kind of a vetting process there too because again we need to make sure again that that dynamic isn't thrown off by any one person being kind of added in right right you think about how many people should be there should it be you know a larger circle with more voices should it be a circle that's smaller and more contained because of what you're sharing in terms of what we know of the student who may have more anxiety heading into that process and who that support person could be for them in order for them to feel like they're really able to share and kind of heal in the process so i think as you can hear me you know think out loud with you stacey it's like there's a lot to it right to ensure that it's actually going to be healing and not harmful and we would rather just not do it if there's any doubt in our minds that it could lead to more harm than good but i'll let you add to that and you Lisa yeah i i wanted to just say you know the circles aren't really about changing kids opinions or thoughts or ideas it's about really understanding where the common ground is really understanding each other's perspective and having a conversation about how we restore our community here at school one of the things that happens in advisory as kids move up through the grades as they take part in circles at least a couple times a month a circle where they have prompts often once a week in advisory so that when things get hard they already have a mental model for how to sit in a circle listen to each other hear each other's perspectives and just repair the sense of community that they they might want to be looking for i mean i appreciated what leila said earlier in this conversation about having that circle and like being able to be on a bus or in a senior picture together and being okay with each other that that feels really important and to your point about repeat behavior after restorative circles they are incredibly effective so when all sides come to the table and they're ready to have a conversation i was trying to think about it and i can't think of a time when the behavior has been repeated oh wow i have a question how is that taught to the students like how do they learn about the restorative process and well the restorative process isn't i mean it's so it's restorative that word's right in the name so you have to have a sense of community to restore and so what we work on in advisory is building the community and having conversations and creating the structure so that they know how to have a conversation in a circle and then when things get hard and we have to have a restorative conversation that foundation is already there so it's like in the separate like it's not a school-wide assembly but they learn about it in their own little yep and in the past we have had restorative justice pvls where students have learned how to be facilitators we haven't run that in a few years but it might be time to run one of those again the students were trained the teachers were trained and i know we're running out of time but i just wanted to my suggestion action is a lot of things are on here it feels like it needs to come together in a policy of some sort i don't think it's a board level policy it feels like it needs to be more detailed specific so i don't know if it's an admin policy but my suggestions would include some sort of way to ask the teachers to be more accountable in these situations and obviously teachers need support both with the tools around the training but also i've heard in previous community forums hasn't come up tonight but they need support from admin and school board that they're going to be supported if they implement the policy and address some of these microaggressions i don't know if there's a policy already in place that just maybe needs some updating for what we've learned tonight but um i'd be interested in hearing from admin on like who would own that and who would follow up on that and teachers and students need to be involved in that as well actually the racial justice class we were talking about like being in on trying to like help make this policy because we just learned about it the other day that like there was a policy that was going to happen and we did this whole board like on the board where we put all of our ideas on this board and we mr come and said okay now let's put the more realistic ideas and the more ideas that are like in our dream reality and then let's circle these together and see what can we do to make this dream reality come true and i think one of our top things was an equity policy and was teacher training and student teacher training um so yeah i think i think all of that could be included in that policy and i think that's i don't know where that is in the works but it's in theory in the works so i think like trying to like get in on that thank you one o'clock on the nose we really appreciate your participation we can't thank you all enough for being here in particularly our student panelists thank you so much for generating and for us to focus topic tonight and we're going to continue this conversation so thank you for the action steps the next steps we have we have a lot to think about and a lot to implement and put into place as a result of what was generated here tonight so really thank you so much for your engagement engagement tonight in your participation in the conversation