On Tuesday, January 26th, the West Linn-Wilsonville school district hosted its 2nd Annual Joint Equity summit, held over zoom. This event had over 108 members, consisting of students and faculty from the district. This meeting was the 2nd of a widening effort to put a focus on student equity in the WLWV School District, both West Linn and Wilsonville high school have started student equity groups respectively, in order to promote equity in all aspects of student life.

The meeting featured keynote speaker, Shauna Adams, who has been an educator and a social worker. Adams spoke about many things that affect student equity, she talked about how past roots of racism are still shown in our schools, how recent events of police brutality have affected us all, and she spoke about the 3 stages of becoming anti-racist. Adams also spoke about how as a student and faculty body we can work to solve the issues of our past and be better as a community. One thing that really stuck out to me about Adams’ presentation was the notion of a brave-space, as people who live in the world we can never be guaranteed a safe space, but we can be brave and fight back against the injustices we face.

As a student, I found it very refreshing to see a large part of the WVHS community come together for a cause, and I’m excited to see what the future holds for the student equity teams and West Linn and Wilsonville High School.