Tyrone High School junior Gary Weaver, sophomore Jamie Lynch, freshman Brandon Ixtepan-Ramirez and social studies teacher Cummins McNitt traveled to St. Francis University for an inclusion and diversity summit on Thursday, May 12, 2016.  The goal of the summit was to engage students and staff the importance of diversity and inclusion in schools.

Other schools with students and teachers in attendance were Bishop McCort, Conemaugh Valley, Forest Hills, Johnstown, Richland, Westmont Hilltop, and Windber.

Students first heard keynote speaker Mr. Curtis Davis, whose message to the students was to focus on their individual perspective for it could start something bigger than they might think.

The students then were broken into groups for several activities and brainstorm sessions.

In the first activity, students were separated in groups based on their uniquenesses, like eye color, birthday, siblings, and grade in school. This taught them that even though they were unique, that they had more in common with the other people around them more than what they originally thought.

“I thought it was a very interesting experience and I’m excited to see the changes that are coming to our school within the next year,” said freshman Brandon Ixtepan-Ramirez.

After getting to know each other, students discussed the importance of perceptions and how it can change a situation based on how they viewed it. According to the presenters, a major part of having a clear perception of something is understanding it.

Students were given different pictures and they were asked if they could see both images. A young lady and an old woman, a duck and a rabbit, a snowman and a knight. Students had to explain to one another if they saw both images and how. Not everyone was able to find both images, and some people found them right away. By changing the perspective and having an understanding of where to look students could then see more clearly what was in front of them.

“The inclusion summit at St. Francis was intended to help schools begin to think about ways to improve their overall school climate. The idea was to get our students thinking about their individual schools and ways we could begin to make changes and to affect the lives of all of our schools on a daily basis,” said Mr. McNitt.

Looking towards the future students here at Tyrone are hoping to have the school become more active in its efforts to diversify the school.

Students would like to see more visibility for the two clubs here at the school that already focus on diversity and inclusion: YAN (Youth Action Network) and the Aevidum club. They hope to work with Principal Tom Yoder to create more opportunities for students to come together and get to know each other outside of the school environment.

“The summit at St. Francis was a great experience. I hope we can incorporate the tools we learned back here at Tyrone,” said junior Gary Weaver.