Civil Rights Team Presentation

By: Kristin Jacques

On Wednesday, November 24, about 10 members of the Lewiston High School Civil Rights Team did a presentation for approximately 150 LHS teachers. The teachers were attending a day-long workshop while students had the day off from school.

At the beginning of our presentation, we explained the mission of the Civil Rights Team, which is to provide each and every student a safe school environment, regardless of factors such as race/ethnicity, sex, age, sexual orientation, intelligence/mental capability, and/or physical appearance. After that explanation, we showed off a sample of the posters we have been working on since September. These posters state the purpose of the Civil Rights Team. One poster will eventually appear in every classroom so that students can be aware of what is appropriate in school and what isn't in correspondence to the Civil Rights Team mission.

Next, we presented the pins we have been making which read "Diversity no Adversity." In a couple of weeks we will have made enough pins to distribute one to each teacher at LHS. After that, almost all of the team members present performed two skits. These skits revolved around issues of harassment that occur every day at school but often go un-noticed and unresolved. We took breaks between skits to ask the teachers how they would handle a difficult situation, then we gave alternative solutions of how to handle such a problem.

The last thing we did was go over about four more "what if?" school-related situations in which one student was not respecting another's civil rights. We brainstormed how teachers should discipline the students while explaining exactly why what they were doing was considered wrong.

Our LHS Civil Rights Team has been working very hard this year and we hope our presentation conveyed our important message to the LHS staff.