Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice have become household names. Ferguson is no longer a little-known town in Missouri. Dozens hold a “die-in” at New York’s Grand Central Station in protest of police brutality. Major sports figures wear grey hoodies or t-shirts saying, “I can’t breathe.” These and other seemingly unconnected events have made race relations Topic A in the American conversation, dominating news outlets and social media from coast to coast.
Members of the Student Group on Race Relations (SGORR) at Shaker Heights High School are ready to tackle this topic head-on. The group will host a community discussion, Privilege & Perception: Race in America, on Thursday, January 29, from 6:30 - 9 p.m. in the High School's Upper Cafeteria, 15911 Aldersyde Drive.
Community members are invited to participate in this student-led discussion, which will focus on race relations in America within multiple contexts. Please register online as space is limited.
SGORR was founded in 1983 by two Shaker staff members and a small group of concerned students. Their goal was to help sustain and celebrate the interracial friendships that developed naturally during elementary school, yet noticeably declined as students entered their middle school years.
Since that time, the group has grown from 15 to 250 students, making it the largest student organization at the high school, and the mission has expanded beyond race relations to support inclusivity and diversity of every kind.
SGORR members are trained to facilitate discussions and teach intervention strategies to all of the district’s fourth- and sixth-grade students. They meet with them three times each year, with the goal of reducing discrimination, stereotyping, bullying, and social polarization. More recently, the group has also begun working with students at Shaker Heights Middle School.
“When SGORR students facilitate programs at Shaker’s elementary and middle schools they serve as role models for the younger students,” says program coordinator Molly Nackley (SHHS ’00). “The diversity education the high school students impart to the younger students teaches respect and acceptance of those who may appear or think differently from them – an ever-increasingly important lesson in the diversifying world.”
SGORR students also lead diversity workshops for other schools and community groups in the area. The program has served as a model for human relations programs at schools and universities throughout the world.