The Racial Equity Student Leadership Academy is an initiative that aims to foster racial diversity, equity and inclusion across all schools in the district. Through a team of 50 FUHSD student representatives, RESLA aims to further diversity and inclusion through workshops, both online and in person, to create race-conscious and equity-minded classrooms.
The University of Southern California Equity Center is a professional learning community that, according to their online mission statement, aims to illuminate, disrupt and dismantle racism in all its forms. In June 2024, they reached out to multiple school districts, including FUHSD, offering opportunities for collaboration to create a program expanding equity initiatives on campus. With support from the schoolwide Equity Task Force, the FUHSD board was ready to continue similar work. RESLA was designed to bridge differences across campuses, encouraging students from different schools to collaborate.
Starting in June 2024, Superintendent Graham Clark and Associate Superintendent Trudy Gross met with Dr. John Pascarella, director of the USC Equity Center. After exploring how this collaboration could further current DEI initiatives at FUHSD, a proposal was presented to the FUHSD Board in August. Once approved, nine student representatives were chosen for Lynbrook, led by Assistant Principal and Lynbrook RESLA administrator David Erwin.
“We have always been working toward building the different ways we get support regarding equity efforts,” Gross said. “Superintendent Clark and I thought that it aligned well with efforts already in place.”
RESLA’s main purpose is to encourage students to take an active role in improving campus climate by addressing issues related to race, LGBTQ+ inclusion and other aspects of diversity. While the district has been holding advisories on topics of DEI, RESLA aims to teach strategies that student representatives can use to navigate challenges of racial inequality and implicit bias in classrooms. The program also focuses on fostering student leadership and agency to empower these representatives to implement strategies learned at RESLA meetings at their campuses. Furthermore, it serves as a pilot to assess the effectiveness of these strategies and their impact on creating lasting change within schools.
“With more concentrated leadership focus, we hope to create more long-standing strategies,” Gross said. “With also an increase in student advocacy, student representatives will have more control and influence on the climate at each school.”
RESLA held its first in-person meeting on Nov. 20, 2024, bringing together students across the FUHSD schools to discuss issues of DEI, focusing on brainstorming common experiences and challenges surrounding racial equality on campuses. The workshop will host six meetings throughout the year, consisting of two workshops held on-location at FUHSD and four online. Students then broke into smaller groups to discuss strategies for navigating these challenges and responding to explicit acts of racism within the school community.
Two educators from the USC Equity Center, Dr. John Pascarell and Dr. Shaun Harper, engaged with FUHSD staff to discuss methods of confronting racism and leading conversations around racial justice on school campuses. In future meetings, topics on confronting anti-AAPI racism, sustaining safe environments for LGBTQIA+ students, and interrupting colorism will be discussed.
At Lynbrook specifically, representatives are working toward creating a race and equity club on campus, providing some variety to the strong campus focus on STEM. The club also aims to host guest speakers with different experiences on DEI topics as a way to keep students actively involved, rather than relying on limited perspectives within the school community.
“As part of RESLA, I hope to make an impact by changing the way people think about how they use racial slurs and similar language,” freshman and RESLA representative Adam Salme said.
Looking ahead, RESLA aims to empower student representatives to embed racial equity in leadership practices, fostering campus and classroom cultures that are inclusive for all students. RESLA workshops led by USC educators have equipped them with strategies to identify and address racial inequities on their campuses. FUHSD plans to measure the program’s impact through annual surveys sent out to assess student experiences, including the use of racialized slang and incidents of racism on campus.
“At RESLA, our ultimate goal is to disrupt those unconscious and conscious biases that hinder other people that are underrepresented in our society,” Erwin said.