By Babiha Kaur, Digital Editor
Starting May 30, River Hill celebrated its first Pride Week! Students and staff alike were able to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community at school by wearing a different color each day, choosing free pride stickers in the mornings, purchasing pride items during lunch periods, and sporting the new River Hill Pride shirts.
The Gay Student Association (GSA), which consists of students and staff that support the LGBTQ+ community, organized Pride Week. Ms. Appl, Mr. McCready, Mr. Welsh, and Ms. Kitchelt were some of the many teachers that put the event together. Junior Shae Fraser, a member of the GSA, believes that Pride Week is important because it encourages support for all kinds of people. Shae comments, “I’m personally participating because I love seeing people be represented, and I love using my art for good. I love to make the little designs on the pins.” During all lunch periods throughout the week, Shae was in charge of creating designs on small pins that students could take for free. The pins sported tiny pictures, pronouns, and other LGBTQ+ images. Students were also able to buy three pride-related items, including bracelets and erasers, for $1.
Pride week is important to many at River Hill because it gives different types of people a chance to be recognized and appreciated. When asked why he wanted to participate in Pride Week, sophomore Fernando Barker shares, “Myself and a large amount of my friends would either fit into that community or support it in some way, so it felt important.” Junior Harrison McCarthy also believes that it is crucial to recognize a large majority of people at River Hill. He comments, “I think that it is important for those people to be seen, and to give those who can’t speak about it the right to feel seen.” Pride week is not only representative of those that fit into the LGBTQ+ category, but it is meaningful to supporters as well.
According to many, the River Hill community tries its best to support all groups of people in a variety of ways, the most common method being spirit weeks. The purpose of having spirit weeks is to represent and showcase diversity within the school. When asked if she thinks that spirit weeks are successful, Shae expresses, “I think that spirit weeks are effective, but there’s not that much outreach. We should have had flyers [and] posters. There should have been more talk about the different colors that we were going to wear.” A lot of students were unaware of Pride Week specifically because it wasn’t publicized too well. Fernando agrees, commenting, “I think [spirit weeks] could be advertised more. They are a little bit hard to really get a lot of engagement in, but they’re definitely worth the effort.”
Not all spirit weeks see the same level of participation, however. This depends on many factors, including how appealing the spirit day is, how important the topic is, and how many people know about it. Shae describes, “What I do think back to is barbeque dads and soccer moms; that didn’t really turn out the right way. I didn’t think it worked very well because it wasn’t specific enough. It was a little bit too general, but what I think is a really big one was bring anything but a backpack day. That was great; a lot of people participated because it was fun and it was well known.” Harrison agrees, sharing, “Some of our sillier spirit days have been pretty popular, but some where you just wear a color, not so much.” Students are more likely to participate in spirit days when the topics are more renown, fun, and popular.
This year’s Pride Week saw a sufficient level of engagement according to many students. Fernando shares, “I could have seen more participation, but I was surprised by how much interest there was. I feel like [for] all [spirit weeks] though, there should be more push for cultural integration.” Shae also comments, “It went as far as there was a couple people wearing the outfits and colors. Mostly teachers and mostly people that were directly involved in the GSA [wore them], but there were a lot of people wearing the pride shirts that they were allowed to get from Ms. Kitchelt’s room.” Although the spirit days themselves were not the most appealing to a variety of students, many were still able to participate and support the unique community.
The River Hill community as a whole is attempting to push for the importance of diversity. Fernando expresses, “I think we’ve made progress, but there’s still a lot of progress to make. I definitely think that a lot of our staff and Ms Lidgard have really pushed the importance of that, and they need to continue to do so. So, I would say we’re on the much better end compared to many other places.” Harrison agrees, sharing that River Hill does a good job “recogniz[ing] individuals’ pronouns, recogniz[ing] sensitive topics especially religious backgrounds and things like that.” It is crucial to support many groups of people within the community so that everyone feels respected and represented for being who they are.
Overall, Pride Week was a success according to many students. Members of the River Hill community participated and were able to support a large quantity of people that deserve recognition. Shae concludes, “Pride week is important to me because I think that it’s really important to notice that people around you are different and they have different lives, and just be empathetic of that fact. I think pride week is a beautiful time to be proud of who you are and how far we’ve come as a community.”