By Nadia Mansour

The students from the District Student Advisory Council (DSAC) are joining the global effort to tackle racism by creating an educational video for younger students so they are better equipped to challenge racism and discrimination. The video is planned for release in May 2021.

“We are working on about a ten minute video that will target grades 4 to 8 and is tackling racism and all aspects of it,” says Taryn Atkinson, DSAC chair.

She hopes the video will also be able to answer the question “why is racism bad?” for students who may not understand the impact. Each year, DSAC chooses certain issues to focus on, and this year racism was “something that needs to be tackled in our school district,” explains Atkinson.

She believes that youth voices should always be at the forefront of decisions and conversations within the school district.

“We are the ones in the school, we have all these trustees and principles and teachers and awesome staff members…which is great but they have not experienced high school as we are living it right now." 

The goal is to combat the issue as it presents now, so that youth coming into the school system feel heard and have the skills to speak up for themselves and for others. There are steps Atkinson hopes students will take to address issues of racism within schools, including calling people out, not being a bystander, and fostering conversations.

“Just talking about the issues present today…even just talking with friends and family...it will start the conversation going," she said. 

An incident of blackface on Oct. 30, 2020 at the Prince George Secondary School brought to light issues of racism in SD57. Atkinson recalls the day it happened.

“People were texting me and asking ‘who is this kid? What has happened?’ and everyone was reposting it… you were on any social media platform.. you would see it," she said.

The response from SD57 came only after this flood of attention on social media, she added. 

"Why was nothing done for this before?…Why can't they make it such an important issue when it's through all of our schools?” Atkinson said.

To her, this new video is a step in the right direction and an opportunity to move from reaction to a proactive response by the school district. 

Long after the video has been released, Atkinson hopes the school district will continue to make this issue a priority. She emphasizes that, “it isn't, ‘okay we are done with this video, we don’t need to talk about racism anymore’” and much more needs to continue to be done to address racism and incorporate education surrounding it at all grade levels.

Listen to the interview on CFUR-FM: