The school must incorporate student feedback and rethink its approach to fostering inclusivity
Written by Lia Arditi
During one JLS Gender Sexuality Awareness Club meeting, the adviser posed a question: “How can JLS be a more accepting space for minorities, specifically LGBTQ+ people?” Many hands shot up. The entire meeting was spent proposing ideas and transcribing stories of students’ and teachers’ targeting marginalized groups and administrators’ ignoring complaints. One student even mentioned that JLS was liberal in theory, but not in practice — that is, it claimed to be an inclusive school but didn’t put in the effort to actually be one. By the end of the meeting, so many people had brought up complaints that more than half of the people who raised their hands still weren’t called on. These issues arise as a result of how staff handles student feedback; in order to address the core problem, JLS administrators should listen to students and ask for their opinions in fostering an inclusive school environment.
Throughout my time at JLS, I’ve had teachers who would disproportionately scold girls, mistake people of color for one another after months of knowing them and ignore when students would say slurs. Once, when a student approached a teacher with a note with slurs against her, she simply told the student to “deal with it.” While attempting to report these incidents to counselors, my peers complained how they would take weeks to respond to emails, only to tell students to talk to someone else about them. The staff has also been known to set arbitrary and hard-to-enforce rules, such as banning physical
contact — famously calling JLS a “hands-off” school — and sending out a list of restrictions for Halloween costumes that were stricter than those of most elementary schools. Lessons about anti-bullying and inclusivity sometimes felt poorly made and failed to convey their intended message. They were also usually scheduled during PRIME or class time, making some focus more on how much studying they were losing out on instead of the topic at hand. In this environment, many students felt as though no administrators at the school were taking them seriously.
While I am a freshman and haven’t spent as much time at Gunn yet, I have yet to hear any language targeting marginalized groups beyond “jokes” made by people who may not understand the weight of these comments. I’ve also heard a staff member yelling something along the lines of, “We don’t use these words at Gunn,” presumably after a student used a slur — a strikingly different response from the way I’ve seen most JLS staff act.
LESSONS ABOUT ANTI-BULLYING AND INCLUSIVITY SOMETIMES FELT POORLY MADE AND FAILED TO CONVEY THEIR INTENDED MESSAGE.
Furthermore, Gunn students have more control over how the school handles potentially sensitive topics, whether it’s through equity trainings or engaging cultural events — the Pride event in September and the Día de los Muertos event in November both felt fun and weren’t mandatory or forced down peoples’ throats. Contrastingly, the Kahoots made to promote inclusivity at JLS cut into class time, felt scripted and didn’t lead to much productive discourse. It was almost as though they were made for the administrators to meet a standard set for them rather than a genuine effort to effect change.
THE WAY THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS BUILT, HOWEVER, DOES NOT ALLOW STUDENTS TO HAVE A SAY IN HOW THEIR SCHOOL IS RUN.
Granted, not all of Gunn’s practices should just be copied and pasted at the middle-school level, and adults would probably need to do more facilitating and prompting. The way the current system is built, however, does not allow students to have a say in how their school is run. I was a member of the JLS student council, and spending five minutes during meetings to ask for opinions on upcoming events or pushing out anonymous feedback forms seem like simple things to implement.
Comparing Gunn to JLS shows the benefits of placing more trust in students. Although having middle schoolers run every single event is an unrealistic standard, if the goal of an educational institution is to foster an enjoyable learning environment, then listening to students’ concerns — regardless of their age or perceived maturity level to engage with nuanced topics — will help them learn more effectively and enjoy their experiences more.
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