By Devon Lindsey and Robert Gilman
Staff Writers

During December 15th‘s advisory block, the freshmen and sophomore classes attended a Diversity Assembly. Various WA student speakers represented not only the different racial, ethnic, and religious groups, but also the disabled and lesbian students as well.

Mrs. Kumar lead the discussion, asking the students different questions about their opinions on how accepting the student population and faculty are to the school’s diversity along with how open certain aspects such as the school curriculum are open to minorities.

According to Mrs. Kumar, with the rising number of different demographics within the school population, many teachers wanted to make sure they were aware of the different groups within the school and what they could do to create a more accepting environment for those students.

So, about two or three years ago when the first Diversity Panel was held during a professional development day, which teachers from the elementary, middle, and high schools attended , there was a lot of positive feedback from teachers, some of which wanted it to become a yearly event.

The last panel was held for freshmen and sophomores, with both student and faculty panelists. The students really enjoyed hearing what other students had to say, so this year’s panel was made up entirely of students.

While the overall consensus was that WA is for the most part rather accepting, there are still some issues. A few panelists brought up how students tend to stereotype Asian and Indian students as easily earning high grades. While it can be a motivating factor to earn high grades, those expectations are not always easy to live up to, as it puts a lot of pressure on students who have to put in a lot of work to earn the grades that they get.

A panelist also mentioned that one of the only books in the sophomore curriculum with an African American character is Huck Finn, and finds it upsetting because she finds Jim (the character) to be a poor representation of African Americans. A few others also mentioned it would be nice to have a more diverse range of authors.

 A panelist also asked the students to be more aware of the wheelchair ramps throughout the school. While it is accidental, students will sometimes be blocking the ramps, making it hard for the students who need them to get from class to class. A problem mentioned by many of the panelists was the amount of homophobic slurs they hear from students through out the school day.

Some of the attending students were impressed by the presentation.

“It was really great because it had a lot of different people, I didn’t realize there was so much diversity in this school,” said freshmen Peter Fidrych.

Others such as sophomore Josh Huston believed there was not really any need to have the assembly, because it would not be helpful.

“See the thing is that kids have too much comfort in racism; and so these[assemblies], as educating as they are, won’t have a major impact.” said Huston.

However, he has not noticed too many issues aside from students of religions besides Christianity and Judaism having homework assignments during their holidays.