Keep MKE Clean
Before Parkland, MPS students were already discussing safety
Three months before a school shooting in Florida focused the national spotlight on gun violence, high school seniors in Milwaukee started a campaign to keep their school safe.
“Help Keep MKE Clean” grew out of an elective class at Riverside University High School, a public school on the city’s east side.
Students wrote morning announcements, spawned a social media campaign, mentored freshmen and organized cleanups and speak-outs. Milwaukee’s Common Council was so impressed, aldermen unanimously approved making the campaign an official city program.
Now, as the class prepares to launch their most ambitious project yet — a new peer mediation program to help students resolve disputes before they escalate — 10 students spoke with the Journal Sentinel about their campaign, school safety and the national conversation about gun violence.
The students, all seniors, agreed on several points: They feel safer inside of school than outside of it. They believe peer mediation will help stop fights and arguments from turning physical.
They think having guns inside of a school is a
bad idea, no matter who is wielding them. They’re frustrated by the portrayal of their school on social media and in the news.
But the students, like any group, are not a monolith. Some thought the National School Walkout was effective, while others did not or chose not to participate at all.
None of them are planning to go to the marches in Milwaukee or Washington D.C. on Saturday.
“We weren’t notified about a march,” one said.
“Never heard about it,” said another. Just because a person is standing in a march doesn’t mean they fully understand what they are marching for and why, said Franco Childress, a senior who did participate in the earlier walkout.
Some students at Riverside took the walkout seriously, but many did not and saw it as free time, he said.
“We stood as leaders and examples, but we can’t shape everybody all at one time,” his classmate, Ty’Johnna Gardener, said.
‘Violence spreads like trash’
The class campaign has rallied around the slogan “violence spreads like trash,” even using it as a hashtag.
“A man doesn’t want to pick up trash unless it falls into his yard, and I felt like it was figurative, like nobody wants to stop violence until violence hits them,” Franco said.
How many of them have been personally affected by gun violence? Every student raised a hand. They believe their peers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School should have the national spotlight after 17 of their classmates were shot and killed.
They also can’t help but notice the lack of attention given to the shootings that happen in their neighborhoods every day.
“I just feel like we need to have others branching out with us as well and making it something bigger than what it is,” said Indira Ali, referring to the class campaign.
“We’re always focusing on the negative when it affects predominantly white communities but not when it affects minorities,” she said.
Gun violence has always been an issue in urban environments, said Khalil Coleman, a community activist, mentor and education contractor in the school district.
“The school shootings, most of the time, (affect) white students,” he said. “So the moment school shootings happen, then every school must honor it.
“But the moment one of our students lose a friend on the block or they lose their life on the block, it’s never acknowledged,” he continued.
Kayla Aponte was the only student in the group of 10 who did not walk out on March 14.
“One of the reasons why I didn’t walk out — I don’t wish death or any harmful things upon anyone — but I just felt like with police brutality, that’s a big thing with black males, so when black males are getting killed, pretty much a handful of white people were helping us protest against police brutality and with the Black Lives Matter movement,” she said.
“So I just felt like now that there’s been a shooting in a white suburban school, they want a lot of high schools, including black high schools, to participate in a walkout,” she said.
Her classmate, Ty’Johnna, said she understood that reason but added she chose to walk out because of her faith.
“I feel like it could have been any of us,” she said. “It could have been my family, it could have been my siblings. ...So I would do it for them in hopes that if something happened to us that somebody would do the same things for us.”
Kayla had a quick response: “And nine times out of 10 they won’t because they haven’t.”
Media portrayal
In February, a large brawl broke out at Riverside. The fight, involving mostly girls, was recorded on a cell phone and posted on social media.
The teens faced disciplinary action. One observer said it looked like Riverside had a “hostile learning environment” for its more than 1,500 students.
“Our school has so much more to offer than what we have been portrayed as,” Ty’Johnna said. “There’s a lot of good things going on here. We’re trying to overpower the negativity.”
Peer mediation and their broader campaign can help stop those fights, said her classmate, Dijon Williams.
“I also feel like if we had more programs like this throughout the whole United States, that could prevent a lot of school shooting cases,” he said. “If you have programs like this, you have people letting them know they’re there for you and they can help you out.”
The class already has received training on how to prevent and intervene in potentially volatile situations or arguments and will receive more extensive training from Derrick Brewer, former director of school safety and security for the district.
Brewer helped implement the original peer mediation program in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which was found to reduce the rate of suspensions at the time. MPS leaders, facing a civil rights complaint, have said they are working to reduce the racial disparities in discipline in the district, which has had among the highest suspension rates in the country.
The students will work in pairs and with a staff member to help mediate.
They are in the process of working out details with Riverside administrators and hope to start as soon as next month. The class also has secured 15 summer jobs through a city job program to work in the Victory Over Violence Park on King Drive. They say they’ll use their mediation skills in the neighborhood, too.
What the students want
What do these students think is needed to make the city a safer place? Jobs.
“Jobs keep you busy and out the way, as we say,” Ty’Johnna said. “I work and got money the right way, and not everybody can find a job so it’s harder for them so they result in selling drugs and robbing people’s stuff.” Education and scholarships. “Many of us are the first generation to go to college,” Stenisha Bowen said.
That means they can’t rely only on their parents to help navigate applications for schools and financial aid. Riverside has two guidance counselors for several hundred seniors, she added.
“It’s hard for us to do this stuff without all the help that we need,” Stenisha said.
More positivity.
“If we do have more positive things like this, then as a whole we won’t feel like we have to escape Milwaukee,” Zuri Clay said of jobs, peer mediation and other programs.
“If you think about cities like Atlanta or Los Angeles or New York City, you never really hear ‘I want to get out’ of those other big places,” she said. More opportunity in the inner city. “I want it to stop looking like abandoned buildings with corner stores every time I go outside,” said Franco, who lives off Center St. on the city’s north side.
One of their teachers, Nate Deans, pointed out what the group did not say: more policing.
“That’s important, though, because the narrative is in order to make communities safer we need policing,” he said.
Also not mentioned: Arming teachers with guns.
Asked if they think there’s any place for a gun in school, the students answered with a resounding no.
“I don’t really feel like it’s a place for a gun at all, not even on a cop’s belt loop,” Ahmad Shaffer said. “They don’t use it right. They demonstrated that, they’re not going to use it right. They’re going to abuse their power when they use it.”
Indira, who sat a few chairs away from Ahmad, referenced national news stories about teachers who accidentally fired their gun or committed suicide in school.
“Teachers snap, too,” she said. “They’re not robots, they’re human.”
And the students feared what could happen if one of their peers overpowered a teacher and took a gun.
As the class moves forward with their peer mediation program, they want to make sure what they started at Riverside continues after they graduate this spring.
“I know a lot of our students, they’ve got a lot of potential,” Ahmad said. “I see it in them, I know they can change, it’s just the people that they are hanging around with.”
They are starting to recruit juniors who can take over and are focusing on how to keep their school peaceful.
“I want to be able to at least change and turn around one life from what we’re doing right here,” Dijon said.
Ty’Johnna thinks of her brother and his future. She wants him to have safe places to go, free of gun violence, and the chance to earn college scholarships, as she has.
“I have a younger brother who has to grow up here,” she said. “I’ll be leaving for college soon, and I don’t want to have to come back home because my brother is dead.”