May 2, 2014 at 12:47 p.m.
RHS Diversity Club receives WREA Challenge Award
RHS Diversity Club receives WREA Challenge Award
The award recognizes public school projects that inspire greatness in students and is meant to contribute to an improved environment for the students, the school and the community.
The RHS Diversity Club, founded by Hampton in 2012, was chosen for the honor. The club will receive $2,000 along with the award.
While still a young club, it has already made great strides in teaching students the importance of acceptance and equality.
"(The Diversity Club) is all about changing school climate," Hampton said. "Basically, our program is to develop social awareness and help students understand different things about diversity as well as to develop coping and anti-bullying strategies. We deal with prejudice, with equality, those kinds of concerns. Our basic premise is to improve the high school's climate as well as NCSS (Northwoods Community Secondary School) because we are open to anyone in grades nine through 12 in either the high school or the charter school."
Last year, the club ran an anti-bullying campaign encouraging their fellow students to join them in an attempt to end bullying in all of its forms. Since then, the group has tackled issues including, but not limited to, dating violence, equality, acceptance and cyber-bullying.
"Every month we have some kind of activity where we do lessons on anti-bullying, our students have gone into the advisory periods to teach lessons on walking in someone else's shoes, we've taught lessons on cyber-bullying and the importance of thinking before you post things online, we've dealt with what it means to be in a healthy relationship and what to do about dating violence and what a safe dating relationship looks like, topics such as that," Hampton said.
"We've done a lot. We've been so busy and I'm so proud of these kids for taking on these issues and teaching other students about what can be tough topics to talk about. They show a lot of maturity."
Hampton said the $2,000 will help the club expand its operations into James Williams Middle School. The money will also be used to help club members attend conferences that will allow them to better teach their peers about what it means to be accepting.
"We're planning on trying to expand the program and its activities into the middle school to help with prevention in that way. (The money) will help us reach out to both middle schools and teach some lessons on anti-bullying," Hampton said. "My hope is to also send a larger group of kids to a leadership conference that's coming up in November where we can develop, as a team, more activities that we can bring back to our school and present to our students."
Bullying is a hot-button topic in today's society. It can be a touchy subject, one students aren't always comfortable talking about, but Hampton said she couldn't be more proud of the way her Diversity Club members have handled themselves. She said the award is a testament to the good work they have done.
"It's a wonderful feeling for the students and myself. I'm so proud of them and the work they've done. They really deserve this," she said. "The kids that have joined our group are very dedicated and very passionate about working on improving school climate and stopping the bullying. I couldn't be prouder of these kids and to get the recognition for the hard work is important for the kids, to let them know what they're doing is the right thing and is a good thing."
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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