“School systems often make decisions for you and not necessarily with youth voices present at the table,” says Olivia Keithley, from experience.
Olivia and her schoolmate Trés McMichael joined the Baltimore City Student Council to change that. They were both student council presidents, Olivia from 2009 to 2012, and Trés in 2014 and 2015. Then, they were invited back in August 2020, to develop and implement a program on equity, diversity and inclusion.
“It felt like going back to high school for homecoming,” says Trés, jokingly. Knowing the ins-and-outs of student leadership—and discovering that some of the guiding documents they created in high school were still being used—Olivia and Trés set out to push the conversation further.
“The systemic issues that existed when we were students are still here and are really hard to move,” Trés says. They had a distinct goal in mind: create something that surpassed education to taking action.
The friends created four sessions that covered diversity training, role playing and lesson planning, turning student awareness of issues into action by practicing meaningful conversations they can take back to their peers, teachers and principals.