Students: Sophia Castillo, Yahaira Garcia Barrios, Jorge Lascano,
Nuvia Melendez, Brianna Tepox, Alexandria Whittington
Grade: 10th Grade
Submission Date: 6/3/2026
Location: Hesperia, California
Project Focus: A Movement Towards Cultural Understanding
Overview: When we started this project, we believed the main problem on our campus was that there wasn’t enough diversity when it came to learning about different cultures and studies. We felt that many students didn’t feel seen or represented in what they were learning, and that all students should have the opportunity to learn about cultures beyond the ones most commonly focused on, such as Black and Hispanic experiences.
We took surveys and held interviews on our campus with students, teachers, and administrators about how they felt our school was handling Ethnic Studies. We took that information and our own idea, which was to add students onto a decision committee, to our district's school board. By speaking up in front of the school board, we tried to highlight that we need more diversity in our school’s classes because people don't feel seen. We hope that people higher up in the education system realize that students do truly care about their school community and learning environment and it helps those who were pushing for a similar issue feel heard and understood.
Clip of student speech to Hesperia Unified School Board, 2026
Our Journey
We were looking at our community and we saw a lot of big problems, and wanted to address homelessness in our area, but we realized in our timeframe that we wouldn't be able to have an influence the way we wanted to. And so we decided to focus on a smaller issue we saw in everyday life that we could have an impact on. To narrow down our choices we went around and talked about problems that we or someone we know has faced, and that is when ethnic inequality came up. As we looked around we saw it everywhere in the way students treat each other, but our biggest issue was the lack of education available to explore different ethnicities on our campus. We knew that our school was currently offering Chicano studies, but we also wondered why only Chicano studies were discussed and why we couldn't elaborate on other ethnicities.
When we reached out to people for support, many didn’t respond to our emails, which made it difficult at first to build momentum. It seemed the more we reached out, the more we were denied access to critical information. Instead of giving up, we shifted our approach and started talking to students, teachers, and administrators, and those conversations helped us hear different perspectives and better understand how students experienced the issue firsthand.
As our journey continued, we realized how important representation in Ethnic Studies really is. We represented our school and the overall problem by speaking up in front of the school board. In what we said, we tried to highlight that we need more diversity in our school materials because people don't feel seen. At the board meeting, it was cool to see so many other people finding problems and changing our community for the better.
By the end of the project, we understood that change does not happen on its own. If we wanted students to feel more seen, heard, and represented through Ethnic Studies, we had to take the first step ourselves.
Project Artifacts
Slideshow about the project
Full video of student speech at Hesperia Unified School District
Our Impact
As a result of our work we have accomplished bringing notice to the lack of cultural diversity within our campus. While already having one culture being represented, recognized, and embraced, it still isn’t enough.
It was a great start, but a number of students are interested in learning about others through a deeper cultural understanding, and the collection of data through a dozen interviews backs the want for change on our campus. To make it a more rounded and overall better learning environment, engraving a greater level of diversity and understanding for other students who have only ever seen the school's majority, rather than the minority that often gets forgotten.
Our principal was very impressed by our speech to the school board and said “the message was heard loud and clear that students want more say in what is going on on our campus.”
The project is thankfully continuing through the principal, who wants to form a diverse student committee to give opinions on decisions. Over time we will hopefully see more and more of what we worked towards.
