On Thursday, Feb. 6, a group of select students attended the Missing Voices: Equity in Education conference at St. Mary’s University through the school’s Culturally Responsive Teaching program. The all-day conference focused on bringing racial equity into schools. The students who attended were members of Edina High School’s Dare 2 Be Real equity club, which is a club that works on improving racial injustices in schools.

“The students that participated were ones that had been engaged in conversations about voice in education, specifically involving race,” said Ms. Heidi Howard, one of the faculty members who brought students. “I wanted to see what other kids from other schools were doing with Dare 2 Be Real and get different ideas,” said sophomore Nawal Ahmed.

The event hosted diverse youth as well as educators and parents from around the metro area to work together to create solutions to eliminate the opportunity and academic achievement gap in Minnesota. The conference also featured keynote speaker Gloria Ladson-Billings, whose research examines the practices of teachers who are successful with African American students.

Participants engaged in conversations to gain insight from multiple perspectives. “I was surprised to see a principle from Eagan who wanted to make her school equitable. Most teachers and principles don’t acknowledge racial division,” said Ahmed. The group, working together, was able to create potential goals as well as steps that could be taken. “We brought up some good ideas, like having administration hire faculty that are colored instead of the colored people only being the janitors and the cafeteria women,” said junior Najma Ahmed.

What the participants ended up taking away surpassed some students’ original predictions. “One thing I took out of the conference was that I had a support group. I felt like my group wasn’t meaningless,” said Ahmed “When you want to try accomplishing something, you just need something to start with, and that’s what this was.”