Firelands hosts diversity panel

outside of school.”

HENRIETTA TWP. — Firelands

Schools have seen an increase in comments and incidents disrupting learning and upsetting students, Superintendent Mike Von Gunten said, prompting a forum Thursday evening.

“The reality is that in the last several months, we have seen an increase in language, behaviors, comments about race, religion, orientation, disability and body image that have disrupted our learning environment, that have led kids to be very upset, and as a school community it was time that we started to have a conversation,” Von Gunten said.

Von Gunten was quick to note those behaviors are the exception rather than the rule. However, he said the district cannot have 95 percent of its students safe while 5 percent feel like they’re without those same supports.

“Until all kids feel safe and feel welcome, we have work to do,” he said.

To create that feeling, Firelands now has four goals to create a community where everyone is welcome, Von Gunten said. Those goals are: bringing awareness to the issue; making sure students feel safe at Firelands; making sure students feel as though they belong; and making sure students feel respected.

Von Gunten co-hosted a panel with alumni, staff and a parent of a current student, discussing diversity in Firelands Schools.

Its panelists included Fred Williams and moderator Tony Caldwell — both Black men who attended the majority white Firelands Schools and heard of an incident in August. Allegedly while at a party toward the end of summer, Firelands High School football players forced their only Black teammate to box another boy on the team and later called him the n-word and forced him to call them “massa,” according to a bystander’s police report.

The incident was not mentioned specifically at Thursday’s forum but, according to previous reporting, was a spark for Williams and Caldwell to see the panel take shape.

Others on the panel were Firelands Elementary Principal Sun Choe, an AsianAmerican woman; Tim Allomong, a gay man and Firelands alumni; Matt Saylor, a Firelands alumni whose daughter has cerebral palsy and attends the district; social worker Ashley Blair and recent graduate Caden Bomback, who started Falcons for Equality during his senior year.

Questions ranged from alumni’s experiences at Firelands to what diversity and inclusion mean to them.

When asked how a lack of inclusion has impacted day-to-day life, Saylor answered both as a parent watching his child struggle, and on his daughter’s behalf.

He said more so this year, she’s faced problems with bullying, threats and being left out as she transitioned from elementary to middle school.

“You could see her self-esteem dwindle,” he said. “She went from loving school to not liking it really much at all, looking for reasons she didn’t have to go. That, in turn, affected her motivation in the classroom itself.”

Blair, speaking as a social worker and on behalf of low-income students, said kids constantly fear they’re being judged.

“Kids who come from underprivileged homes, they’re not wearing the fanciest of clothes, they’re less likely to participate in after-school programming because their parents don’t have the funding for it or they can’t get them there,” she said. ‘They’re less likely to do well academically because they’re concerned with things

When asked what they know now as adults that they wished they’d known in high school, Allomong focused on his experiences as a member of the LGBTQ community.

“Back then ... you never knew someone else gay or lesbian or different in many respects,” he said. “And I took that so personally and now I have a better understanding of myself and those around me and the shortcomings of other people are not their fault, it’s just how they were raised.”

Later, he said it wasn’t until he got outside Firelands that he was able to see other men like himself — not stereotypes of gay men like Jack from “Will and Grace” — and he’s since been able to get beyond those caricatures for other people in his life.

Williams said he wished he could tell his younger self to respectfully call out those who made him feel uncomfortable.

“Allow them to realize this hurts,” he said. “This is something that you should not go out into the real world after you leave this community and say to me,” he said. “The main thing I can really, really pinpoint is communication.”

Bomback agreed.

“It’s not a bad thing to get a bunch of people together and call people out,” he said. “Don’t let it go under the rug.”

He encouraged students and families at Firelands to be open-minded moving forward, noting “the last thing you guys want is for Firelands to be viewed in that negative light. None of us want that here.”

Touching on what adversities faced as a minority, Choe said she had a hard time thinking about adversities she faced for herself, but feels anxious for her children.

Choe and her husband are both from South Korea, so her fears are more for her children that for herself.

“To give you an example, a good friend of mine and I were talking about what if when they started school a teacher doesn’t like them,” she said. ‘I think we’ve all been there. I said, ‘when something like that happens, I never know is it my kid or that adult’s bias for my child?’”

Williams said while he faced obstacles at Firelands that as a teen, he didn’t look at it as a big deal.

He gave an example of having to sneak into his friend’s house to hang out because his friend’s father didn’t want a Black teenager in his house.

“Right or wrong, that was an adversity because I just really wanted to hang out with my friend and I just didn’t understand why his father did not want to see me in his house,” he said.

“... I don’t think kids are any crueler now than they were then, but there’s jokes, there’s things that are said that probably, in an essence are in good fun,” he said. “But at the same time you really don’t know how that affects you until you actually get out into the real world.”

Closing the hour-and-a-half session, Von Gunten touched on the district’s next steps.

Those include a new partnership with Effective Leadership Academy to bring instruction in developing empathy, respect and inclusion at the high school starting in March.

The district is also working on how to pull student leaders from athletics and other extracurriculars together for a student dialogue.

“My family goes back 110 years in this district,” Von Gunten said. “Do I know everything about Firelands? No, I do not. But I do believe that I’ve got a pretty good pulse on the district. So we’re going to make some minor changes, communicated and continue to work to make sure that all our kids (feel) safe, respected and belong.”