This year Social Justice Day changed to Social Justice Week, but students debated whether it is more convenient and productive than last year. Problematic for some, it altered the disruptive side of Social Justice Day for others.
“We were noticing that there were a lot of students who were out [that day],” Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Taylor Kanemori said.
Attendance was meager because the day was not seen as a “normal school day,” Kanemori said.
“With it all being in one day, it means that we had a little less flexibility in what the programming could look like and the day could look like,” Kanemori said.
The “disruptive’ Social Justice Day, according to Kanemori, converted to Social Justice Week. However, having Social Justice Week took away Community Time for studying and clubs. Instead of having club time it was used for our Social Justice Day activities.
“So definitely I [did most of my] workload more at home, but it wasn’t too bad,” eighth grader Aryana Atreya said.
Social Justice Week was also an opportunity for the rest of the community at UPrep to participate with the middle school students.
“LEAD is a really cool opportunity for students to lead other students in discussions,” Kanemori said.
Along with students participating in Social Justice Week, teachers also had a chance to partake in workshops with students.
“I liked [my] workshop. It was fun,” Atreya said. “It was fun to just hang out with friends”.
She participated in the Third Places with Play-Doh workshop run by Nancy Dumouchel. The participants played and talked about the community. They made symbols of community with the Play-Doh.
While many students did get the workshop they wanted, some did not.
“There was a lot I wanted to do but didn’t get to do,” sixth grader Yoyo Ji said.
Difficulties existed with the platform used to sign up for the workshops. To participate in the workshop you wanted, you had to wait your turn to log into the website to sign up for a workshop. This made it difficult for students to get the workshop they wanted.
There were no affinity groups like in past years.
“I would bring back affinity groups,” Atreya said.
According to Kanemori, affinity groups were not included this year because of difficult scheduling and the lack of preexisting affinity groups in middle school.
“We’re hoping to open up more affinity groups in middle school and have some experiences in that so that when you get to that day on Social Justice Day, it didn’t feel like a brand new experience,’’ Kanemori said.