Students lay groundwork for change
Teens organize town hall talks on racial equity
ELKINS PARK » For Cheltenham High School students Lisa Omulo and Noah Gocial, holding a virtual town hall about racial equity at the start of the academic year was a much needed step to lay the groundwork for lasting change.
“I feel like it’s important to stand for something,” Omulo said. “We all live in this world and we’re all going to be living in it, so we want to help progress and become better as a whole. We want to have a community and communicate together so we can work together and make the progress that we want to see.”
After being appointed the Cheltenham School District Board of School Directors’ student liaisons, Gocial, a senior, and Omulo, a junior, didn’t waste any time getting to work.
“In lieu of recent events, including the heinous murder of George Floyd, devastation from the coronavirus, and many more pivotal events, we wanted to provide a space where open dialogue could freely flow,” Gocial said in a statement following the September town hall.
Making a list of a number of issues of importance was top priority for the two high school students, but they agreed that hosting a town hall was key.
“Having a town hall would allow the community to directly communicate their ideas with the school board, and we thought that was the best idea,” she said.
They agreed they wanted to get right to work, and didn’t waste any time doing so. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the virtual forum was broadcast on Zoom on Sept. 12, and more than 20 people attended.
“We set other dates; we did everything that needed to be done so that this could actually happen,” Gocial said.
Gocial underscored the importance of developing a channel of communication with school district stakeholders to “see what they want to talk about, and see what they want to discuss be
cause that is instrumental in the part.”
“All that we want to do is ... know how the community will best benefit from the changes that we can help provide,” he said.
The suburban school district held an in-person town hall more than two years ago, according to Gocial who added that the forum was attended by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.
While students primarily discussed student activism and gun reform during the March 2018 session, this most recent event went virtual as the student moderators and school board members talked candidly about racial equity.
As for issues facing the Cheltenham School District community, Omulo and Gocial noted there’s a “lack of representation in the classroom.”
“Noah and I have both taken AP classes and honors classes and the disparity in the classroom does not reflect the diversity within the school,” Omulo said.
Gocial added that the district only offers “eurocentric languages” as compared to other “world languages” such as Arablic or Mandarin. He’d also like to see more “African-American history and literature [added] into our curriculum.”
Omulo stressed the importance of tackling the achievement gap.
“We also want to break the achievement gap,” she said. “We definitely wanted to work with counselors and help them to offer these classes to the certain students regardless of if they’ve never taken an AP class or an honors class before. We want to give every student the chance to expand their knowledge.”
Both agreed of ficials needed to start as early as possible to build an equitable foundation for all students.
Gocial and Omulo emphasized the importance of the younger generation getting involved to propel tangible evidence of differences reaching beyond their immediate neighborhoods.
“We need to work together as a community,” Gocial said.
“We now realize how much power we have in our voice and expecting how we feel and seeing change is really a driving factor,” she said. “So as the young people including myself and even younger get more involved we’ll be able to see more of the changes we want to see as we grow older.”
As Cheltenham School Board’s dynamic duo continue tackling issues of importance throughout their community, they agreed fostering relationships with neighboring school districts and local NAACP branches is crucial.
“Personally, I’ve been to five Springfield School Board town halls that they’ve hosted, and every time I’m just blown away by the Springfield resolve to combat these inequity problems, and we have invited all of those kids to our town hall,” Gocial said.
In the age of information, many turn to social media as a way to start having these difficult, yet necessary conversations amid a public health crisis and rising racial tensions.
Omulo said while the platform can be a useful educational tool, it also serves as an “outlet” for young people navigating a somewhat turbulent national climate.
“Having social media really helps us get information extremely quickly,” she said. “So having these conversations also is like a form of relief because it gets re
ally tiring seeing people murdered every day.”
For Gocial, whose classmates know him as “that political guy,” said he’ ll of ten craf t “awareness” posts on various social media accounts.
“I do ... talk about this issue with my friends all the time because I think it ’s very important,” he said.
They might not always see eye-to-eye, but Gocial said the conversations are ultimately productive as “I get my point across, and then they will always accept that yes, there is a problem, and then we then talk about how to fix that.” Omu lo a nd G ocia l were enthusiastic about the September town hall as they received positive feedback from f r iend s and family, as well as current and former Cheltenham High School students.
“I think it went re - ally amazing for our first one,” Omulo said. “We got good turnout, we got good questions and we got good participation from the community.”
Omulo and Gocial have a ser ies of town ha lls planned throughout the remainder of the school year. To submit questions, fill the school board town hall online form.
The next virtual event takes place on Wednesday, Nov. 11, as par ticipants examine the distr ict’s “equity plan” further, while the remaining seminars tentative ly scheduled for January or February and June will focus on school safety and the overall school year.
“We wanted to cre - ate equal opportunities for all students,” Omulo said. “So basically where ever y thing has a stage, and we want to bring it to the school board in a way that they could help resolve the problems.”
“So right now we’ re working on the solutions that could eventually be put in policy,” she continued. “So we want the community to come together and help us speak to the school board about what we want to see and definitely push them to make these changes for the community.”