Yesterday, Hart, Tami and I really appreciated participating in an all-day career fair at Reagan HS -- soon to be called Northeast HS because of the Confederate associations with the Reagan name. About 100 students came by to do some or all of the t-shirt challenge.
In response to the reflection question about which of the Supervillains they would fight and how, about half chose Racism. I am happy for the school's name change away from the Confederate Postmaster because it is clear that racism is a very present concern for students. As one student wrote, "We can fight racism by overcoming white privilege." About 17% of students chose to fight the Sexism Supervillain because, as one student wrote, "We should all be treated equally, and the way we will fight is by using our voices." The Supervillains of War, Greed and Ecocide each were named by about 11% of students. Wrote one, "Ecocide. I mean we can try together as a society by reducing how much pollution we produce like ride a bike/walk if its somewhere close." Another wrote, "I'd go for Ecocide because without the earth, we couldn't solve any of those. We could do regular old recycling, or could waste less." Wrote another, "Ecocide, because at the moment I feel that the ecosystem is really in trouble."
Choosing to fight against War, one student wrote, "because of all the innocent people dying for no reason or getting captured." Another student wrote that war could be prevented by coming up "with a really good compromise for both sides." And as another student concluded, "I would choose to fight War, because I would like to see Peace and how it would feel."
Penny Poll results from about 90 students showed a priority for Education at 29% of the vote ("for my kids," said one student), 28% for the Environment, 24% for Health Care, 10% for NASA and 9% for the Military.
Speaking of the military, there were 3 tables of military branches at the career fair: Army, Marines and Army National Guard. Northeast also has an Air Force JROTC and a number of students were wearing their insignia and helping out with the career fair. I was dismayed to see that the recruiters had sign-up sheets set out at their tables for students to write down their contact information. I showed the 3 recruiters the AISD policy that prohibits recruiters from soliciting student contact information. They responded that they weren't "soliciting" --they were just putting the sign-up sheet out there. I believe they know the intent of the policy is to not get phone numbers from students, but they are trying to circumvent the policy.
We were glad to be part of the career fair to offer some balance to the recruiters and to give students an opportunity to talk about what is important to them. As the EMT who was set up at the table next to us said, his mission and ours were the same: to try and prevent pain and suffering.
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| Army recruitment table with sign-up sheet collecting student contact information -- in violation of AISD policy regarding recruitment in schools |
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| Marines recruitment table with sign-up sheet collecting student contact information, in violation of AISD policy regarding recruitment in schools |
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