Leadership class holds Speak Up for Change Week

English teacher Erick Rector and guidance counselor Eileen Allen speak during an assembly on Jan. 25. Both are SHS graduates who told stories about what life what like for them when they went to school at Saratoga High.

When students returned from this year’s Martin Luther King holiday, there was more waiting for them than piles of homework and projects.

Speak Up for Change Week, four days dedicated to promoting positive change on campus, took place the week following this three-day weekend from Jan. 22 to 25. The week was created by the leadership class, which is led by assistant principals Kerry Mohnike and Kevin Mount.

“The objective of the week is to empower students to not just talk about change, but do something to effect positive change on our school campus and maybe in the wider world,” Mohnike said.

Classes were slightly shortened to make time for school-wide activities and assemblies. On Wednesday and Thursday, teachers devoted about 15 minutes of their class time to teaching a mini-lesson with a topic specific to their department.  Some lessons were about cliques, cheating, and the power of words.

Leadership students helped come up with these mini-lessons and met with members of the department for whom they created a lesson plan.  For leadership student and junior Jennie Werner, collaborating with members of the English department was rewarding.

“We met with the English teachers during lunch in the English Palace, we shared with them a rough draft of the lesson plan, and they gave us feedback,” Werner said. “It was really helpful to see a teacher’s perspective and they helped us realize the things we had overlooked.”
Senior Sasan Saadat, a also member of the leadership class, first broached the idea of Speak Up for Change Week.

“I came up with the idea after an interscholastic ASB meeting,” Saadat said. “They do something called ‘Not in Our Schools’ week at Gunn High, and I thought we could use it as a template for something cool at Saratoga.”

According to Mohnike, the leadership class has had to adapt this idea to fit Saratoga’s unique atmosphere.

“Our issues, while they are similar to a lot of other schools, [are] pretty specific to our school, and if [the plan] is not organic, then there’s not a very high likelihood that people will buy into it and care enough about it to make a difference,” Mohnike said.
Saadat hopes the week will address a few social issues in particular.

“For example, the issue of racism and stereotyping seems to be something that goes unnoticed often, but is still a very real problem,” Saadat said. “Issues like body image and sleep often fall by the wayside after freshmen year health classes, and we'd like to return some due focus to them.”

Saadat is optimistic that students will be inspired by Speak Up for Change Week and take action.

“I hope that students approach the week with an open mind,” Saadat said. “I hope that they are eager to push themselves to change anything they identify as negative with this campus, and see that rather than complain or tolerate, we can take action and improve our Falcon family.”
Mohnike echoed Saadat’s sentiments.

“It’s the whole notion of ‘If we don’t do it, who will?’  We can't expect someone else to make our lives better; we have to do that ourselves and this [week] is hopefully going to provide some tools to help people realize that,” Mohnike said.

According to Mohnike, the week is largely student produced, an aspect she hopes will further inspire change.

“I hope the leadership class feels ownership of it,” Mohnike said. “Students have a language unto themselves.  There are things that students can say to each other, that they hear better when their peers say it.”

Mohnike believes the week will teach students lessons that can be applied for the rest of their lives.

“We’re really trying to make them understand that the world outside of high school is so big and wide, and the only way you can navigate it is if you learn these kinds of skills on top of all that academic [material],” Mohnike said.