In commemoration of Black History Month, Montpelier High School has decided to be the first high school in the ENTIRE COUNTRY to fly the Black Lives Matter flag next to the American flag.
“People choose their flags because they want to represented and they want to be seen,” student Joelyn Mensah said. “We students do not feel like we are represented or seen in our education and we are here to raise the flag because we want to be seen and we will demand to be represented in our education.”
This student also founded a student group called Racial Justice Alliance which has toiled for over a year to bring this idea to light, and the school board unanimously voted to approve it.
“In a lot of ways, our education has been robbed from us,” Hazen Union High School senior Zymora Davinchi said. “We don’t have equal access to education. We don’t have equal resources because we don’t grow up learning anything about ourselves.”
HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE EQUAL ACCESS TO EDUCATION!?! That’s an oxymoron, right? Emphases on the MORON.
“We all, as Vermonters, should be proud of what we are doing in our schools when we can have our youth be this responsible,” state Rep. Kevin “Coach” Christie said.
Their idea is to bring attention to racism.
“We are committed to improvement and this dialogue and to work for equity and racial justice in our school system,” Principal Mike McRaith said. “We can and we must improve our educational system to be more culturally competent and ever more inclusive to the historically marginalized and oppressed.”
There has been local backlash for raising the flag but school officials have stated that have received more support than not.
“Thank you for understanding that the decision to fly the Black Lives Matter flag this month at Montpelier High School is not anti-police. It is anti-bias,” McRaith said. “Thank you for understanding that we reject any purported violence associated with Black Lives Matter and embrace the message of equity for all.”
“I think all the high schools in this country should put up flags that say Black Lives Matter because, unfortunately, European-Americans need to be reminded,” community member Bob Fisher said.