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There has been no shortage of topics to discuss since Missouri’s Maplewood Richmond Heights High School principal Kevin Grawer started a Student Group on Race Relations (SGORR) last year. First there was the killing of Michael Brown, a local black teen whose death took place not far away from the high school’s district. Then this year, just a few hours away, protests broke out at the University of Missouri after a series of racially charged incidents. Teenage students who partake in SGORR — a voluntary club — unpack it all through discussions at their weekly meetings.
Club discussions “make me think twice about how I view different things or situations that are happening, in terms of who does this affect, and how is this going to affect the rest of us?” ninth-grader Tamar Crump said.
Tamar is part of a small but dedicated group of students who regularly attend SGORR meetings, which are typically student-led. At Maplewood Richmond Heights school, which has a diverse student population — about half white, 40 percent black and 10 percent Asian and Latino — the club allows students to dissect issues that are impacting people in the world around them, as well as in their own classrooms.
Grawer started the club last year, after visiting Shaker Heights High School in Cleveland, Ohio, and watching a similar club in action. The killing of Michael Brown, which set off a wave of local protests and civil unrest, increased the urgency to start a constructive initiative in Maplewood.
