Every month, the integrity team holds a meeting focusing on various important topics to which the whole school is invited. This January, the theme was “We Are Saints,” highlighting how to involve the campus in Black History Month activities.

For more context, the Integrity Team was created by Mr. Coulter and is student-led. The Integrity Team was created in 2021, and although it is fairly new, the impact is undoubtedly very apparent all around campus. The Integrity Team is highly collaborative with the Foundations of Leadership elective class at San Dimas High School, which Mr. Coulter is also in charge of. Foundations of Leadership and the Integrity Team is made up of numerous students from all grade levels who work on bettering the campus and community.

In January, the theme of the meeting was “We Are Saints,” and the meeting acted as a working integrity meeting as students and staff were planning activities that corresponded to Black History Month in February. The one-hour meeting was a mock-up of Foundations of Leadership picking an iconic person or someone personal to them who they wanted to acknowledge during Black History Month. In San Dimas High School’s media center, the Integrity team had planned a wall of icons for Black History Month. Mr. Coulter described it as “someone that inspires you on your worst day, someone that makes you feel better about yourself.”

There were about 20 students and staff who attended the meeting in total and everyone discussed who they wanted to acknowledge and add to the wall. People picked their grandparents, cousins, and even famous people such as Wilma Rudolph, Kimberly Crenshaw, and Kobe Bryant. As lunch began, more staff arrived at the meeting, and even some of the school’s counselors and principals joined in on the meeting. Then the discussion expanded to have the wall honoring individuals for Black History Month to turn into a year-round recognition for people so that students and staff could constantly bring acknowledgment to those impactful to themselves.

What started off as a wall for honoring individuals during Black History Month, turned into making an impact on the campus that everyone could join in on, all year round.  Meeting attendees suggested that there be a section for people who inspire people in general, one for people who are inspirational for Black History Month, one for Women’s History Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and many more. This way, many people could get involved with the initiative, and the representation of all cultures and identities was recognized on campus.

The meeting ended with a continuous collaborative discussion about leaders and inspirational people who were already on the wall. Many pictures were submitted by students and staff and had QR codes that allowed people to scan and learn more about a specific inspirational person. Overall, the meeting was very successful and collaborative. And the campus should be very excited to partake in this initiative and see how much it grows over the next few months!