Peninsula schools work to increase diversity education

After a few tumultuous moments earlier in the school year instigating tension and racial remarks among students at the Peninsula School District, minority students and their teachers are stepping up to bridge a gap between teens who might not understand the others’ reality when it comes to race, religion and beliefs.

“Teens mostly don’t know better,” Gabby Wider, 16, a sophomore at Gig Harbor High School, said. “They might pick it up from their family. It’s just something they think is funny.”

Wider is a student representative for the district’s equity committee, an organization comprised of district leaders, teachers and students working to create a more equal and inclusive environment at the district.

“We meet the last day of every month to discuss how to increase awareness in our schools,” Wider said.

Wider decided to join as a student representative in December after feeling pushed over the edge by a comment made towards her. Wider is Jewish, her mother was adopted by a Jewish family and she grew up in the religion’s traditions. During her school career, she has heard comments either made directly at her or at the expense of Jewish people as a whole by her peers.

“Gig Harbor doesn’t have a ton of diversity,” Wider said. “One time a friend of mine started making a ton of Jewish jokes. I finally had to say, ‘Stop that. I don’t think it’s funny. No one else thinks it’s funny.’ I just don’t think he realized that he was hurting me.”

Wider is not the only student who has felt tension because of the current political climate, or has been the end of a joke or someone else’s harassment.

A HARD YEAR FOR PENINSULA HIGH SCHOOL — AND THE COMMUNITY

It’s been a rough year for Peninsula High School. After experiencing the death of two students in separate car accidents, the school was also at the receiving end of an arsonist who left racist messages spray painted on school property.

“It was tied to an arson,” Peninsula High School principal Dave Goodwin said. “It actually was on the year anniversary of another arson at our school.”

The suspected arsonist painted the message “black lives don’t matter” on an area of sidewalk, then attempted to break into the school library, before pouring gasoline on a portable classroom, which was then lit on fire.

“We were dealing with the fire before we realized about the message,” Goodwin said. “Students then started taking pictures of it.”

The racist message was not the only incident that has left some minority students feeling uneasy.

Starting last fall, paper posters advertising for a website, bloodandsoil.org, were seen posted around Gig Harbor.

“There were over 100 of these on every vertical surface from Home Depot to the YMCA on Borgen Boulevard in Gig Harbor,” resident Ian Paden wrote in an email to The Peninsula Gateway in November.

The flyers touted statements like “resurrection through insurrection” and showed a map of the United States with the phrase “conquered not stolen.”

The flyers direct people to bloodandsoil.org, which uses a historic nationalist slogan. The website has ties to the group Patriot Front, which posted photos of its flyers in Gig Harbor on Twitter. The group has not been identified as a hate group by national organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union.

These recent events have opened the eyes to teacher and staff at the local high schools, who are now encouraging students to start committees and clubs so conversations with peers can be had about how to create an inclusive, safe place to learn.

BRINGING DIVERSITY TO THE PENINSULAS

Alyse Yeaman has been an art teacher at Gig Harbor High School for years, and actually graduated from the school herself.

“I grew up on (Hilltop Tacoma) where I went to a bilingual school before attending Gig Harbor,” Yeaman said. “So when I started working at Gig Harbor as a teacher, I noticed that there was not place for our Latino and (English as a Second Language) students.”

Yeaman said she saw how the lack of inclusion and awareness made her Latino and Hispanic students feel separate from the rest of the school, which brought down their grades and participation in classes and extracurricular activities.

“They were not happy so they were not thriving,” Yeaman said.

Yeaman decided to gather the students and create the school’s first Latino club. What started as a small club has now grown to 30 students from many different backgrounds who want to share their diverse cultures to their peers, while also bringing to light some of the issues within the community.

“This is just a start,” Yeaman said. “The ball is now rolling and there is now awareness out there that there has to be support for a multicultural, ethnic groups. They are now happy at school. Some of them are enrolled at (Tacoma Community College). We still have a long way to go, but the more that we get aware, the more we do better. This is a new thing for our district to think ‘Our diverse numbers are growing and we need to welcome them.’”

Goodwin said for him, having the Peninsula High School diversity committee is one way to tackle some of the taboo issues that a lack of diversity can cause.

The new diversity committee meets during lunch hour with Leacy to talk about how the high school can better establish themselves as an inclusive group.

“The students are working with me to create learning opportunities for our students and teachers,” Goodwin said. “They are also talking to staff about issues they face.”

Goodwin said even though Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula are so close to diverse communities such as Tacoma, they feel separated by the bridge. Many times, students and staff don’t realize what they are doing can be offensive or harming to another student. Instead of punishing the offenders though, he wants the committee and district to work to make this a learning opportunity.

“For example I had a student’s parents call me because their daughter, who is African-American, was being called names by her friends,” Goodwin said. “It was the ‘N’ word. The friends thought they were saying it in a friendly way. Instead of getting those girls in trouble, I invited the parents to come down and explain to their daughter’s friends why that was actually hurtful and what that word really meant. It ended well with the friends apologizing and everyone hugging, saying they would do better.”

The district’s equity committee, Wider said, is also hoping to establish more diversity clubs at the local schools, while hosting district-wide events. After the incident with the arsonist, a new group, Peninsula Open Hearts, hosted a district-wide event to talk about inclusion and kindness in January.

Wider said she is excited that she is seeing a positive reaction from the district, instead of trying to ignore the issues.

“I think for awhile the students were having these hurtful conversations and teachers didn’t always see it,” Wider said. “People are just unaware of this. We are wanting to work on getting speakers to come and talk to smaller groups and having the school website include more languages to be inclusive. We want to tackle these issues head-on and make this a teaching moment.”

This story was originally published February 21, 2018 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Peninsula schools work to increase diversity education."