Whitefield Civil Rights Team

The team had a great day in Augusta at the statewide training event. Grade 5 created PSA posters that addressed issues of civil rights in our building, while grades 6 – 8 attended workshops that focused on identifying civil rights violations in a school and how to “sell” the concept of the common good. After a delicious luncheon, teams were able to share their PSA projects as well as offer information about how their expectations for the day went. 32 students and 4 adults attended the program. It was an excellent way to begin the school year for our team. Now it will be time to focus on the two specific areas that appear to be the most in need – harassment towards students in the areas of physical and mental disability and gender discrimination. Team members identified several situations that they believe are definitely in violation of our Maine Civil Rights Law.

We had an amazing time at the Civil Rigths Team training. Fith graders had a morning workshop all to themselves where they created Public Service Announcement posters. We started by discussing what type of behavior we wanted to address, and the 5th grade decided that inappropriate physical behavior was a major concern. We came up with four loacations where bullying or negative behavior occurs in school: Cafeteria, Hallway. Bus, and the Playground. Then, they drew posters of the behaviors we don’t like to see, and then drew the behaviot we’d like to see instead. Check them out:

Then, we were surprised to hear that they wanted us to share our posters in front of the whole group. The kids were a little nervous, but did a great job sharing their posters. Congratulations to everyone.

On October 14th, the WES civil rights team will travel to Augusta for a state-wide training on how to be an effective civil rights team. Joining other teams from elementary, middle and high school levels, our team will participate in areas of training that include, but are not limited to, how the Maine Civil Rights Act applies to schools, designing and producing a civil rights PSA (public service announcement), and addressing specific negative behaviors in a respectful manner. This event is sponsored and funded by the Maine Office of the Attorney General. Over 30 students and two parent volunteers will attend from Whitefield.

Friday night, October 16th, the CRT is sponsoring the first dance of this school year ! Being held from 7pm – 9pm, the dance is open to all students in grades 5-8 at a cost of $4.00 per person. If a student wishes to bring a guest, there are guest forms required and available through Mrs. Norris. Food and drinks are free to everyone, and there will be a 50/50 raffle. All monies raised are to be used for CRT expenses – Birthday Boxes, planning for January Diversity Day speaker expenses,etc.

There are three October birthdays for our Birthday Boxes, and all three have a team member sponsor. This is turning out to be a very popular project this year !

Starting the second calendar year of the WES civil rights team, our first project was to insure that our new students felt welcome in our school. The CRT sponsored a New Student Luncheon and invited seven new middle school students for a Make-Your-Own-Italians lunch. The team donated all the food items and ,while everyone was eating delicious sandwiches, we shared our focus and projects for the upcoming year.

Another focus area is insure that people feel valued regardless of their economic, social or academic status. The CRT contact the Bread of Life ministries homeless shelter in Augusta, and received a list of all children living in the shelter. Knowing only the gender and age of each child, team members adopt a child to give him/her a Birthday Box. The box contains a gift and a book that compliments that gift, plates, napkins and a birthday banner. The team member provides a cake that will be appropriate for the child and the child’s family, then the Birthday Box is delivered to the shelter by a member of the Whitefield community.

The meetings are Thursday from noon to 12:40 PM. Students bring their lunches into Mr. Beeton’s homeroom, and the team reviews the items on the weekly agenda. Everyone is invited to join the team, but the commitment must be to attend every Thursday and remain the entire 40 minutes.

On Thursday March 12th, we will have a Civil Rights Team table at Education Celebration. People will be able to see what we are doing, check out the blog, and meet the members of our team. In addition, we will be going on a couple of field trips.

On Wednesday, April 15th, we will be going to Wiscassett High School for their Diversity Day. There will be different types of international cooking, exercises, and dancing.

On Monday, May 18th, we will be going to the Augusta Civic Center for the statewide Attorney General’s Spring training for middle school and high school Civil Rights Teams. You can find more information on the Attorney General’s website. A reminder to all CRT members: Please bring a cold lunch on the 18th.

We will be getting Civil Rights Team shirts to wear to these events. See below for the t-shirt designs.

Posted by: Robin crt member

We at Whitefield School want to make sure students who come here feel welcome. The Civil Rights team thought that we could give every new kid that comes to our school a gift basket. We will separate the gift baskets like this: K-2, 3-5, 6-8. Each basket will be different. For example, the K-2 basket will include crayons and a coloring book, the 3-5 basket will include a notebook and pencils, and the 6-8 basket will include a binder and dividers.

We are still deciding what exactly to put in, so we would love to hear suggestions. 

Posted by: LLdaisymae

We are all thinking about how to to make Whitefield School a better place. We have noticed bad behavior and respect in the bathroom, on the bus, and in the hallways. We are going to try to fix these problems by not doing this ourselves. 

Posted by: krazykodi95

 The Whitefield Civil Rights Team is trying to make our school more welcoming to those who walk through our door. We are making posters, making our school cleaner, making welcome packets for new students, having a welcome video for our website, and a greeter at our door. It is our job to make people/new students feel welcome to our school. I am an eighth grader working on a poster with my group. What is going to be on our poster is “welcome to the home of the wildcats”. We are also taking pictures of students in our school and putting them on the poster as well. Check back later for what our Civil Rights Team will be doing.

Posted by: emo_princess5495