Chris Weedin, SSOCC director, wanted students to be the empowering change for student safety and have student voices be the leaders in schools. Chris developed this student led committee to discuss common safety concerns thorough out the valley and brainstorm ways to help schools be safer. School safety leaders involved are Kerri Yahne, Safety Lead and Assistant Principal at Granger High School, and Mindy Forbes – Counselor at Selah Intermediate School Each Safety leader was asked to select a student representative they felt would be honest and lead this group to discuss school safety concerns. Student Safety Summit Leaders are Joelle Forbes from Naches High School, Calvin Herting from Selah High School and Reesah Garza from Granger High School.
The Student Safety Summit was held at the ESD 105 on Thursday, April 11th. Reesah discussed school threats and outcomes that have happened at Granger, Joelle discussed Suicide and Prevention at Naches, and Calvin discussed vaping and bullying at Selah. Four schools attended the Summit with Safety Leads and student representatives: West Valley High School, Selah High School, White Swan High School and Davis High School. Each school discussed top safety concerns they have seen at their schools, discussed whether they would report those issues to administration, what the consequences of not reporting those issues are, and developed next steps to take back to their schools to address these concerns. Positive outcomes and praise were expressed from each school and we look forward to continuing this work next year