County high schools celebrate Unity Days to promote tolerance

Joe Mack wanted to participate in Unity Day at Westminster High School since he was a freshman at the school. As a senior, he stood up and shared his powerful message.

"My speech was just about fear and how it crafts your life as a student in high school," he said. "I challenged everyone to make a Facebook status about one thing they are afraid of."

The response was overwhelming. Not only current Westminster High students took him up on the challenge, but also those who had already graduated and people unrelated to school updated their status, he said.

"It just showed me how much people are the same," Mack said. "A sense of unity is important."

High schools across the county are hosting Unity Days to celebrate diversity and challenge their students to be tolerant and accepting of each other. While the day looks different at each school that hosts them, the goal is the same: create a positive, anti-bullying and welcoming environment for all students.

Westminster High School English teacher Laura Doolan said the school was the first to have a student-led Unity Day in 2007.

South Carroll High had previously hosted a World Cultures day, but Westminster's event decided to focus more on student problems within the school.

"We had issues in our building with discrimination, intolerance, issues of racism, sexism and homophobia," she said. "We wanted to address them."

The day is organized by the school's Stand-Up club and features student speakers and performers. There is also an activity that involves entire student body participation. Every two years, the school buys Unity Day T-shirts that are distributed to all students and staff to wear on Unity Day.

"The goal is to address the issues of bullying and intolerance that occur in our community as a whole," Doolan said.

Since the first one in 2007, schools like Century and Liberty high schools have adopted similar models.

Maggie Bell, a science teacher at Century, said the school's Unity Day in February included student testimonials and musical performances with a video backdrop of thoughts and experiences students wrote down about themselves.

It was the school's first Unity Day, which she said turned out to be very powerful and encouraged students to be kind to one another.

"This is something that my group of [Student Government Association] students really wanted," Bell said. "That they felt the student body really needed."

Liberty High School started hosting Unity Day last year, but it didn't get an overwhelming response when it piloted, according to school counselor Lea Nappier.

This year, the school decided to have a presentation of Rachel's Challenge, a program that was developed in honor of the first victim of the Columbine High School shootings.

Its mission is to inspire, equip and empower every person to create a permanent positive culture change in their school, business and community by starting a chain reaction of kindness and compassion, according to its website.

In order to create that culture change, the school started a Friends of Rachel club, where students will be part of chain reaction teams charged with spreading kindness.

"I think the follow-through is going to be the most important part," Nappier said. "So we just hope that it keeps going."

North Carroll High School has scheduled its Unity Day for April 18. Its creation was inspired by the social media response to Westminster High's event in the fall.

"It really touched a lot of people online in the community," said Jeffery Shrader, crisis intervention specialist at the school.

North Carroll decided to start its own Stand-Up club, which is an after-school informal support session for students. Unity Day will include dance and song entertainment and story sharing, he said.

"It's an educational event for kids because they don't realize the impact of harassment," he said.

Harassment can be a disruptive force that harms the learning process and can make people turn to destructive behaviors such as alcohol, drugs and even suicide, Shrader said.

"To me, it's a big issue," he said. "But I see things turning around."

At Westminster High, it's the favorite day of the year for most students, senior Carlyn Thompson said. The student body learns about the problems that are facing their peers, which encourages them to be more understanding, she said.

"It's crazy to think about what everyone around you is going through," she said. "[Unity Day] is one of the most powerful and liberating things that we do at our school."