CVU's Social Justice Alliance

We are honored to share another guest post. This one comes to us from students at CVU who are members of the Social Justice Alliance. We hope that viewers of this blog not only read this post, but take the time to visit the SJA website. The work and progress made by students in a short time, and the work underway now and for the future, is remarkable. 

Thank you to SJA members Eva Frazier and Hazel Civalier for their contributions to this post and especially to Carolina Sicotte, who composed most of it and was instrumental in getting this post published. Carolina serves on the Policy, Inservice/Education, and Media Awareness committees.

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Last February, representatives from the Racial Alliance Committee (RAC), Awareness, Change, and Training group (ACT)), Bring Change to Mind (BC2M), and the Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) convened in the Fairbanks house office to discuss the environment regarding social justice issues at CVU. After only minutes of dialogue back and forth, there was no doubt that each group had done excellent work. For instance, the Racial Alliance Committee partnering with businesses and speaking at statewide conferences and Bring Change to Mind creating workshops and presenting to faculty. Yet, it was unanimously agreed upon that something was missing: interconnectedness. The individual clubs had been operating in near isolation for years, attempting to make traction for their issue alone by meeting with administrators, planning school events, and encouraging faculty to incorporate their ideas into curricula. Consequently, although remarkable work had been done, it felt as though there was a constant struggle for attention- of the administration, of the students, and of the community at large, and that until the issue could be resolved, true momentum would be nearly unattainable. The representatives decided to meet again, and as the snow melted and winter turned into spring, the Social Justice Alliance was effectively born. 

With goals of promoting substantial change, SJA became a space for members of 5 CVU clubs- RAC, EnACT, ACT, BC2M, and GSA to dedicate themselves to themes of intersectionality, collaboration, and collective action across several disciplines, while creating a platform for clubs with common goals surrounding social justice to work together.

“CVU’s Social Justice Alliance aims to cultivate a community in which each student’s right to equality is guaranteed, a holistically supportive learning environment is maintained, education on human rights issues is abundant, systemic change is implemented to uplift marginalized groups, and all students’ voices are heard and valued.”

The creation of the Social Justice Alliance opened the floodgates for action. Since its founding, members have wasted no time. With its five subgroups, it has been able to tackle social justice issues in a holistic manner:

Outreach: The outreach committee is truly the glue of SJA. Handling recruitment, member support, organization, and communication + engagement with the community, the outreach committee is responsible for our monthly student forums that cover topics such as eating disorder awareness and the current climate policy under the Biden administration. Furthermore, they have spearheaded presentations to 10th grade humanities classes and Student Council about SJA and have revamped our club’s structure to ensure smooth flow of our work and maintain an intersectional lens in SJA.

Inservice/Education: The inservice/education group began with an incredibly involved undertaking: providing the faculty and staff with presentations ranging from 20 minutes to up until 3 hours, in which topics such as handling microaggressions in classrooms and facilitation productive dialogue were discussed at length, a process that, since August, has continued with current engagement with faculty in the forms of curriculum KUD feedback and advocacy for a social justice credit requirement for CVU students.

Media Awareness: The media awareness committee has tackled several projects, including the launch of our website, podcast series, social media pages, and weekly newsletter. In addition to these ongoing projects, the group has also initiated the process of creating a social justice mural to brighten the walls of CVU.

Reporting/Culture: The reporting/culture subgroup works to increase student awareness of reporting opportunities and is also advocating for a healthier CVU culture to promote safety and inclusivity for all students. Currently, they are rolling out a new reporting campaign to increase visibility, creating educational awareness in sending schools on online sexual violence, and making changes surrounding many school events that have caused harm to numerous students over the years, such as rally in the valley.

Policy: The policy committee has met with administrators countless times, collaborating on issues ranging from reforming and distributing the Bullying, Harassment, and Hazing policy to reviewing the current model procedures and codes in the student handbook and the ways the student body accesses them and even creating an online incident reporting form for students to use at any time.

Speaking of SJA’s website, it is truly an outstanding resource for the community. To summarize, it contains the following resources:

SJA Information and Resources:

• Ways to join, contact, and stay connected with SJA
• Our mission, goals, and accomplishments
• Links to the Student Reporting Form, BHH Handout, and official BHH policy
• Resources we’ve created, such as...
• A recorded version of our August faculty & staff presentation
• Self education documents and further information on intersectionality
• Answered frequently asked questions + guides for educators

Member Club Information and Resources:

• Individual club projects, goals, and unique aspects
• Meeting times, club links, and contact information
• Specialized resources, statistics, and concepts relating to the issue

Updates:

• Blogs for the member clubs and SJA as a whole
• The Round Table (SJA) podcast episodes
• Question and answer form
• Newsletter subscription

In order to achieve its goals, the Social Justice Alliance welcomes community members to join them in their work by volunteering time in getting directly involved with the organization, proposing suggestions for future endeavors, or partnering on projects of interest to social justice issues.

The alliance thanks the students, faculty, staff, and administrators at Champlain Valley Union High School for supporting them in their efforts to create a safe, supportive environment for all at and around CVU. True student rights, equality, and education require consistent effort from all parties in a culture, and the Social Justice Alliance enthusiastically invites the CVSD community to make any contribution, big or small, to their efforts.

For contact and further inquiries, email: crsmith@cvsdvt.org