1st Place, Staff Editorial
2021-22, Division 3, News Writing
By Myah Shelton
Focus
Midland HS
Diversity. Equity. Inclusion.
Each of these three words alone hold so much weight, but together, they are even more impactful. Anyone at Midland High has likely heard them from a teacher, read them in the district’s Communique, or has seen a poster with the words inscribed on it. However, is Midland High doing enough to enforce these ideals as much as they talk about them?
For our package this month, The Focus decided to target the inclusion aspect of the three words. With it being such an expansive topic within itself, we wonder if the school has been doing enough to promote the topic.
The most logical place to begin looking at the school’s inclusivity is at the very beginning of this school year. While there are teachers who will ask students if they go by anything different than the name stated on their class list, or what their pronouns are, it isn’t near enough. This leads to classmates, and even teachers, misgendering or using incorrect pronouns for students, which can make them feel secluded and unvalued. It could be the case that some teachers want to, but just aren’t sure the best way to go about asking for pronouns. However, this could be a discussion held at inclusivity staff meetings, with procedures put into place for addressing this at the beginning of each school year.
With inclusion, it’s just as important to figure out where the student body fits into everything. Although they may not have the power to make more substantial and official changes like the staff and the district do, we still have the biggest impact on the school’s culture. Near the end of last school year, small printouts of various LGBTQ+ flags were taped around the school by students in honor of June being Pride Month. Shortly after, in an act of homophobic behavior, other students had begun ripping them down, trashing them, or crinkling them up.
This isn’t the type of environment we as students should be fostering. While the teachers have had various meetings and training to work on diversity, equity, and inclusion, our student body has not. True, the teachers receiving training is a step in the right direction, but the student body makes up the majority of the school’s population day in and day out. We cannot expect these issues to simply fix themselves if students aren’t given the opportunity to have productive discussions about them. Some teachers may already do this within their classrooms, which is great. We believe, however, there should be scheduled times periodically where all classrooms are required to have respectful, mature discussions about everything from homophobia to racism.
Furthermore, another issue with how the school and district have been tackling inclusion is that most changes feel reactionary. For example, the banning of the Confederate flag on school property last summer. Yes, this was a productive stride in combating racism in the district, and it was a huge achievement that it even happened. However, it only occurred after being demanded in a petition by Anti-Racist Midland that garnered more than 2000 signatures. Had the petition not happened, or hadn’t taken off as it did, the flag may still
be allowed on school property today. While banning the flag should’ve been something the district did long ago as a product of their own active efforts to combat racism, it instead happened because they were called out on the lack thereof.
While there are plenty of things that The Focus believes could be improved with the inclusivity of Midland High, we acknowledge that there have been several recent improvements that step in the right direction. For the first time, the Student Council and Student Leadership decided to change Homecoming court from one male and one female representative to three people of any gender. For the seniors, it was changed to nine people of any gender. Instead of two seniors being voted homecoming Queen and King by the entire school, three of them were voted on as “Top Reps.”
We, The Focus, believe that even a few minor changes to Midland High could improve the level of inclusivity. Ask us our pronouns. Allow us time to talk about issues like racism, homophobia, and any other prevalent issues. Address and improve inclusivity without it being reactionary. These steps are vital to be taken to ensure a more inclusive experience for everyone.
If changes like these are implemented, even to some extent, the overall inclusivity and culture at Midland High will be much more improved for everyone.
NW-06. Staff Editorial
Staff editorials should represent the opinion of the staff, editors or editorial board on a timely news matter of concern to the school, community, state, nation or world. They may express appreciation, offer interpretation or attempt to deal with problems. Editorials are not to be bylined, signed or initialed, or in any way identified as being the opinion of the writer(s).
Judging Criteria
- Represents the opinion of the staff or editorial board
- Topic relevant to interests and/or welfare of school or students
- Wins reader interest with a compelling lead
- Presents evidence/interpretation in logical sequence
- States issue; uses effective examples, facts, and comparisons to clarify
- Deals with specific issue: avoids preaching, rhetoric, and cliches
- Shows sufficient thought and research
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar