In past years, both the Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month assemblies followed a special bell schedule: on a given day, one club would give two distinct 75 minute performances separated by an approximately 30 minute break in between.

This year, PHS Principal Cecilia Birge proposes to have the celebrations occur during homeroom in a shorter, hybrid format, during Tiger Time, or after school like the annual Asian Fest. These modifications were requested by many teachers, as student performers were missing a significant amount of class times for rehearsals and an additional two-thirds of school-time instruction on the assembly day; Birge cited loss of instructional time as the main justification for the change “We want our students to thrive culturally. We also want them to learn academically. When a student is celebrating their heritage on the stage while carrying 60 absences in a class, then we’re not doing our job right,” said Birge.

Birge proposed these changes before the summer, reaching out to the advisors of Hispanic Heritage Month, Latinos Unidos, and Black Students Union to receive their input on the proposed shifts in assembly structure.

“The [advisors] expressed that they understand where we’re [coming] from,” said Birge. However, many students are displeased with the modifications, including Osbaldo Morales ’25, a student leader of Latinos Unidos. The changes mean that only half of PHS will see the assembly in person (the other half on Zoom), which Morales feels would diminish the impact of the assembly in highlighting the culture of underrepresented students.

“With this going on, I just feel not heard,” said Morales. “[PHS] is a predominantly white school. [The assembly is] a way to show that [we Latinos] are here. There’s a lot of us, right, that are in this school, and [people] don’t know that we’re here.”

Lena Hamilton ’25, the president of Pride, Unity, Leadership, Sisterhood, and Esteem club (PULSE) is also protesting the change. The club, which aims to “promote a safe space for women of color to excel in our community,” had previously been a leader in the Black History Month Assembly. Hamilton fears that, if the assembly is moved after school, fewer people would attend, resulting in less chance to foster understanding between different groups within the PHS community.

“Assemblies like these foster communication and open dialogue across students who wouldn’t normally talk to each other”, said Hamilton. “Last year, after the assembly, I had a lot of people coming up to me who I didn’t even know, going, ‘Wow, that assembly was so good!"

Birge stated that, despite positive reactions from students and community members, cultural assemblies have not addressed fundamental issues or created long term change.

“To me, the message is that the students are feeling good about the celebration only ... but then in other aspects students are not feeling included, and we must address that ... one day of celebration [is] not addressing the issue in a fundamental manner,” said Birge.

Moreover, additional cultural clubs have requested their own celebrations, including the Muslim Student Union and several South Asian culture clubs. In Birge’s view, maintaining past years’ special assembly schedules while also creating space for new assembly requests can make it difficult for teachers to fully cover the curriculum.

“[PHS’s schedule has] extremely limited time [and a] very rigid school structure by default at the state level. [We have to consider] the availability of [the] PAC as well as the amount of time required to put up a really fabulous show like that,” said Birge. “We want to keep that highlight for our students. We want them to walk away at graduation [and] say, ‘I did something,’ but we can still do that in 60 minutes.”

In order to reach a solution, Birge has asked student leaders to send a proposal for an assembly that would address some of the administration’s concerns. Hamilton is currently drafting the Black History Month assembly proposal along with other leaders to address the administration’s concerns.

“We’re making a proposal to send to Mrs. Birge on how we would do [the assembly] and make sure it’s as educational as possible,” said Hamilton. “I’m very hopeful that we’ll have a clear solution to this before February, so that we can have our assembly, because I think a lot of people recognize how important these assemblies are in promoting diversity and inclusion within our school.”

PHS Social Worker for Wellness and PULSE advisor Bethany Siddiqu is confident that this year assembly leaders can address some of the administration’s concerns about students skipping the assemblies as a means to cut school.

“Mrs. Birge was not pleased with some of the attendance issues related to the assembly, which I think can be resolved this year in a similar format as we’ve done with the club fair, and now even our evacuation drills,” said Siddiqu. “We can utilize the scanning system to scan in students to verify their attendance.”

Siddiqu believes that with these issues resolved, Birge will approve an in-person Black History Month assembly.

“I think that Ms. Birge was really receptive to the students advocating to have an assembly. I think she wants to see the students step up in an organized way to let her know what [they] want to do, what the mission is, what the layout and the format and all that kind of stuff is going to be, which is totally understandable,” said Siddiqu.

Will Ponder ’25, leader of the Multicultural Student Achievement Network (MSAN), is similarly confident that the Black History Month can work in a shorter time frame, and said that the administration has been receptive to possible changes.

“I think a compromise can occur. Since there is a Tiger Time every week on Thursday, it is definitely an option to incorporate some sort of a cultural assembly within one of those days during this year,” said Ponder.

Siddiqu also emphasized how impressed she is with the student leaders who have worked to reach a compromise with the administration, while at the same time not refraining from their ultimate goal.

“I’m just really proud of the students that are voicing their opinions about something,” said Siddiqu. “It can be really scary to have a meeting with your principal or to challenge authority in any type of way, but I think that the student leaders of MSAN, PULSE and Latinos Unidos have been really professional, and I’m just really proud of them."