by Hannah Yi
1 in 3 students are victims of teen relationship violence. Girl Up members are ready to change this statistic. Attendees of the 2020 Healthy Relationship Summit are in the process of inviting a guest speaker to East. The potential guest speaker is a survivor and is passionate about raising more awareness on teen relationship violence. Girl Up members hope to have her as a guest speaker so more students can listen to her story that will shed more light on this issue. Mia Hutchins, summit attendee and Girl Up member says, “The summit was an eye-opening experience since relationship violence is not usually discussed in classroom settings but can be found in any school.”
Last year, Dr. Redmond and his Human Rights class raised enough money to fund a male student’s education in Rwanda. This year, Girl Up hopes to do the same. Profits from previous and future fundraising projects will go towards sponsoring a Rwanda female student’s education. Advisor and women’s history teacher Mrs. Fey-Daly said, “There needs to be an opportunity for young women and men to explore the inequality and injustices that exist in the world with respect to women and help give back to one’s community.”
March is known as Women’s History month and is an active month for Girl Up. Girl Up will meet in early March to brainstorm ideas towards raising awareness on female historical leaders that fought for gender equality and female suffrage.
Additionally, one of the Girl Up officers will implement a project still in the planning process in March. A tradition started this year, each Girl Up officer is required to implement a project relevant to Girl Up’s initiative to foster leadership skills and further elevate the status of women in the greater Williamsville and Buffalo community. Earlier in the school year, Co-President Annabel Paradise implemented a self-defense workshop open to all students at East. Her workshop consisted of inviting a professional self-defense instructor that taught students detailed methods regarding self-protection. Annabel emphasized that these defense methods will help students have the confidence that they can protect themselves. To learn more about future Girl Up events please check the announcement page on WITS and all meetings are found in room 307.
Girl Up Members Collaborate With School Administrators to promote relationship violence awareness
East School Administration Department March Events
This month, the Williamsville East school administrators are overseeing a variety of events for all East students besides supervising faculty meetings and meeting with teachers to schedule teacher observations.
The annual 8th grade orientation for incoming freshman will take place on March 26th. Ms. Desantis stated, “We really encourage students to help out as volunteers. This is one of the most important events where volunteers are needed.” There is a link available on WITS for students interested in volunteering.
March 9th to 13th marks East’s Spring Spirit week, a new initiative taken by Student Council members. Student Council will be hosting events including a free ice cream social and games in the Commons on Friday March 13th after school. Each day is a designated dress up day for all students to participate in and all information on this spirit is available on WITS in more detail. There will also be a blood drive on Wednesday the 11th where students can donate their blood while receiving government independent action credit. All students who participate in this program will be given a complimentary breakfast and shirt.
Additionally, during this week, the Farmers market will be open during school in Student’s Street hosted by the PTA. Later in the month, there will be a staff development day on the 20th where students will not have school. While students do not have school that day, teachers and the East administrators will work together to create meaningful development and necessary change around each of the departments according to Assistant principal Ms. Desnatis.
Recently, there was a district art show and a Syracuse field trip where Williamsville band members presented to band directors according to the assistant principal Ms. Charleson-Smith. Coming up, there are more musical events including the East and Transit middle school side by side concerts. On March 17th, the Symphonic and Philharmonic orchestras will play with the upperclassmen middle school students and Chorale students will also perform with middle school students on the 12th. For more information on these events, please check WITS calendar.
East School Administrators Oversee Exciting March Events
