Campolindo students attended the 3rd equity lesson of this school year during Academy on January 28. These short, slideshow-based lessons are led by Campo’s Leadership Equity Council (LEC), though the actual material for the lessons is provided by director of student support, equity, and inclusion Lynnā McPhatter-Harris, who works for the Acalanes Union High School (AUHSD) district.

Friday’s lesson focused on SOGIE – an acronym that stands for sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression. Students learned about the differences between those 3 concepts and were educated on laws that exist protecting students’ rights to express their identity.

LEC is given the slideshows from the district in advance of the lessons, and members have the responsibility of collaborating with teachers to present these lessons to classes from a student perspective. “A lot of teachers don’t know that much about these equity lessons that we teach, so having a student’s perspective and having students teaching other students oftentimes is more effective than teachers just getting these slides from the district and not knowing what to do with them,” 1 of the head executives of LEC senior Caroline Fitzpatrick said.

“The goal of these academies is to encourage belonging and inclusion throughout the entire Acalanes High School District and to educate everyone to the same playing field about race, gender identity, and more. It’s basically bringing everyone to the same level to discourage ignorance,” Fitzpatrick said.

After each lesson, LEC debriefs how it went and discusses the student responses. “Some classes are like totally checked out, and it just goes over their head. But in other classes, for example the freshmen, students get really engaged with the lessons and learn a lot,” Fitzpatrick said.

“I think that the SOGIE lesson was especially good for the younger students,” said senior Audrey McBride. “Most seniors already know a lot of this stuff about gender identity, but it can be confusing, so the freshman can really benefit from it.”

“I feel like even I learned a lot of new things, like I never knew that biromantic was a thing,” senior Pauline Barlier said. “So yeah, I think that the lessons are helpful and a good thing for everyone.”

“I think it’s really important just to educate people so that they have some knowledge about this. I feel like people are more likely to be supportive and understanding and not hateful if they understand. And I think it also just overall is important that people can continue to better themselves and learn more to create a supportive and understanding environment of everyone,” said junior Maddie Maestre.

Junior Lucciene Aziz-Mahoney thinks the lessons are valuable because “everyone can have more access to what’s going on in the world and they can all be given an equal understanding of things that aren’t usually talked about.”

“I feel like, in general, these lessons are bringing the district in a positive direction and making it more equitable,” Fitzpatrick concluded.