Justice. Something that all humans have the right to, and something all humans deserve. Serving justice is the goal of PLHS students as they joined the club Papio Proud. Focusing mainly on racial injustices in the school, these students are ready to make a change.

A main goal of these students is to educate students and staff on how to make PLHS a safe place for all. Recently some students created and shared a presentation with staff members at their weekly meeting, to spread awareness on racial injustice.

“The presentation was successful in getting our voices heard and educating staff on racial issues we find most prevalent at PLHS.” Freshman Nyachara Ranley said. 

Another major topic that came up in the students last meeting was incorporating Lgbtq+ activism into their monthly agendas. 

“Yes, so we don’t just want to focus on racism, but that is a main issue in our school but we wanna broaden our views to incorporating sexism, and hate against lgbtq.” Freshman Ava Hall said. 

As it is important to keep all students feeling safe and welcomed at school, many students have trouble speaking up on controversial topics in fear of being attacked for their opinions. 

“If you are truly passionate about seeing equality and equity you should speak up, change starts with you.” Ranley said. 

Sometimes it’s not as easy for students to immediately just spark change in their schools. But sometimes just showing support can spark precisely the right amount of change.

“Just show up to the club, just make yourself known as an ally.” Hall said. So, being an ally and showing support for peers can be the right way to make change in a subtle way.

A main issue that this club is focusing on right now, is how can teachers properly educate and reprimand students who may be using offensive racial slurs towards other students or staff. 

“The teacher would need to address that and talk to them, and I think it could be really educational if they would have to write an essay on the history of that word, or they would need to formally apologize.” Hall said. 

Trying to prevent students from using offensive language is also a major goal of Papio Proud, so they have created two groups within their club, a student group and a teacher group.

With the main goal of the student group being purely educating students on social injustices.

“I’m not a part of the student group, but they made an instagram account that they post messages about major topics on.” Hall said.

Conversely, the teacher group is again focusing on helping teachers properly show students what can be offensive, and showing that person that it’s not ok to use such language towards other members of PLHS.

“At our presentation we gave teachers a site to look at about racial equity and how it should be incorporated in the classroom. We also gave out pamphlets.” Ranley said. 

This innovative group has already sparked change here at PLHS. But there is always more to be done, because as Ranley said previously, “Change starts with you.”