

PHS students Mitalee Pasricha ’23, Emily Wu ’23, Katherine Monroe ’23, and Nicole Vassilev ’22 stand in solidarity with the Asian American community at the rally on March 27 Photo courtesy of Katherine Chang
On March 27, members of the Princeton community including PHS students, staff, and alumni held a rally calling for solidarity with Asian American communities in the wake of the Atlanta mass shootings that resulted in the deaths of eight individuals,  six of whom were Asian women. Over 3,000 individuals attended the event at Hinds Plaza while abiding by the mandatory mask and social distancing guidelines.

The rally followed a roughly two-hour schedule, beginning with a brief welcoming speech by Reverend Robert Moore of the Coalition for Peace Action followed by a vigil in honor of the eight victims in the Atlanta shooting, which included a name-reading and a minute of silence. Following the keynote speakers, pre-selected community members were allotted three minutes each to deliver their messages.

Each speaker supplied their own perspective and voice during their allotted time, speaking about personal and historical experiences of discrimination, their racial identity, and the importance of taking action and demanding change. The speakers at the vigil included citizen leaders from the community, professors from Princeton University, and even current students, teachers, and alumni in the Princeton Public Schools, including Yingying Zhao ’20,  Zoey Nuland ’25, PHS teacher Dr. Joy Barnes-Johnson, and PHS Assistant Principal Cecilia Birge.

“It is our dream // That we can live in a world // Without fuss // Where everyone is us, and no one is ‘them,’” recited Nuland, a student at Princeton Unified Middle School, from a self-written poem.

The speeches elicited emotional reactions from the audience and the speakers alike.

“It's just so touching when you see tears rolling down their faces as Zoey Nuland and Yingying [Zhao] read their points, you know that you touched emotion that's so raw, something that has been silenced for too long,” said  Birge.

Xiaobing Li, another community organizer of the event and a PHS parent, echoed Birge’s sentiments, recognizing the universal nature of the lessons that could be taken from the speeches.

“I am Asian American myself, and I learned so much from the speakers. I think that is true for all community members, regardless of their ethnic groups,” Li said.

Birge contacted local organizations and associations in order to plan the event, but she initially had not anticipated how large it would become.

“Frankly, I did not expect to organize a 3,000 [person] rally. It was just going to be a small vigil at Tiger Park, and then once we began to get more and more people asking us about it, we ended up relocating after talking to the police department… it started from a small thought that was supposed to be comforting and healing and evolved into a vigil with the entire community and a rally supported by 18 community organizations,” Birge said.

After news of the rally spread through social media and word of mouth, PHS student turnout was high.

“It spread pretty widely amongst the student body from what I saw. I know some people were able to get some of their friends on board. And I did see some people who I knew at the rally as well… I do know that social media helped spread it amongst the student body significantly,” said Han Li ’23.

Beyond just attending the event, many PHS students and alumni volunteered in various positions. Michaela Guo ’20 and Emily Choi ’22 volunteered as emcees, and Julia Zhang ’21 served as a demonstration marshal.

Although the rally’s aim was to support the Asian American community, many of the attendees and even speakers belonged to different racial and ethnic groups. The concept of “solidarity” was brought up in many speeches as a necessity for meaningful action, which can be defined as a feeling of unity in feeling and action between groups with shared interests.

“We [tried] to get as diversified speakers as possible from different organizations and different ethnic groups to really show that everybody's in this fight, not just Asians, and not just minority groups, but it's really everybody… we have to be one voice to stop the hate,” Xiaobing Li said.

Many PHS students who attended the event also shared similar sentiments emphasizing the importance of uniting various groups together in efforts to tackle racially unjust structures and situations.

“Especially in recent times, I think we've seen a lot of activism from all different racial groups and I think it's really nice to see how all of these movements come together because we're all fighting for the same purpose — we're all fighting for equality… It's really easy to show consistency in your activism by not only supporting one movement but then also showing solidarity with all of the other movements,” said Ayo Lin Ince ’22, who has both Black and Asian heritage and attended the rally.

Organizers like Birge and Xiaobing Li have been involved in the Princeton community even before the recent rally. In early March 2020, they led an effort to gather personal protective equipment and funds for local businesses struck by COVID.

“I believe in homebrew, community participation in community affairs. [The fundraising] was what the community needed during COVID time. And during this time, I've witnessed that pain and suffering in my students in particular. So that's the need that I saw,” Birge said.

Ince believes the rally provided proper grieving and important education for PHS students who attended.

“I think everyone coming together is a learning experience in itself. Seeing how so many students from Princeton High School came to stand in solidarity with the movement was very beneficial and I think it's important to see that showing up and being active is impactful because it's important to use your voice and to remember that your actions have a real impact,” Ince said.

The tragedy in Atlanta kickstarted national outrage over anti-Asian sentiments, providing an opportunity for new voices to speak out against racism. Birge recognizes this shift in attitude, believing it to be a step forward.

“We were trained to be quiet….[to not] stick our heads out when there's an issue. You want to be doing what everybody else is doing, you don't want to be standing out. And I think that we tried that [and] it didn't work. It worked really badly against us. So now is the time to stand up and rise up and own that responsibility,” Birge said.

Princeton community  holds vigil honoring Atlanta shooting victims

Princeton Public Schools switched to a remote learning system on March 16 to reduce potential spread of COVID-19. This model, which will continue through at least April 17, includes online assignments and attendance forms in order to simulate a school environment.
“From a school perspective, … implementing remote learning [is] the most extreme measure that we could put in place,” said Superintendent Steve Cochrane. 
At first, the district was focused on a greater degree of personal hygiene and facility sanitation within schools. 
“We started with our physical facilities and [ensured] that we were cleaning our buildings and our buses on a much more rigorous schedule [while] focusing on frequently touched surfaces,” said Cochrane. “We're also working on education and practice regarding respiratory hygiene.”
Despite these preventative measures, the risk of contracting coronavirus remained high enough that the municipality officials decided to close schools for the time being in order to prevent the virus from spreading.
“So the other measure, in addition to cleaning our facilities, and maintaining respiratory hygiene, [is] social distancing,” said Cochrane. “The next form [of social distancing] that we [have implemented is] limiting assemblies and meetings of large groups, and especially groups that would bring in older folks, because [children] are actually the group that is least at risk for the coronavirus.”
Teachers at PHS have been using a variety of platforms to work with their students in order to attempt to replicate physical schooling. Outside of an attendance form on each grade’s Powerschool Learning website, some teachers are moving to platforms that they are more comfortable with.
“There have been a lot of problems. Setting up conference calls can be annoying because some teachers aren't organizing the information required to join them, and Powerschool Learning has been failing to upload assignments because everyone is using it at once,” said Amalia Kutin ’21. “It's been really hectic.”
Because of these technical issues, Powerschool Learning has undergone system maintenance to improve service for students and teachers. Other teachers have switched their instruction onto platforms like Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom to avoid the problems with Powerschool Learning. Anlin Kopf ’21 believes that these initial bumps can be fixed once the school becomes more experienced with remote learning.
“Although there have been a few problems, … I think that the school will be able to fix [them] as time goes on,” said Kopf. “I feel like [remote learning] is a very good [substitute] for [physical] school. [PHS] just [needs] to get used to it.”
Despite these limitations, the district plans to continue remote learning past the minimum two week period and into mid-April due to heightening COVID-19 concerns. 
“As we kind of move forward with this, because it's all new territory for us, and there will undoubtedly be some glitches along the way. But we're going to make the very best faith effort we can and we'll figure those things out as we go through,” Cochrane said.

Princeton Public Schools shut down amid coronavirus spread

	On March 23, Jon Kleiman, a Senior School Program Director for Challenge Success, presented the results from the Stanford Survey of Adolescent School Experience — taken earlier this year by PHS students — via a Zoom call, looking at goals for student health and the effects of previous changes to the administration. This survey investigated the mental health of PHS students by collecting data on their stress levels, hours of sleep, amount of homework, and time for leisure activities. 
“We decided [to start administering] the survey back in 2016 because we were noticing that a lot of [the students] were stressed out and complaining about a lack of sleep. They were reporting a lot of homework each night, very little free time, and disengagement with school,” said Principal Jessica Baxter.
The survey, which 90 percent of the students at PHS took, was aimed to provide concrete data to the administration in order to make change.
“We just wanted confirmation of what we were seeing [in our students]. I think it's good to have actually really good data from a [large portion of the student body],” said Baxter. “We use data to make decisions here, and [talking to] a few kids may or may not be representing the larger group of students.”
Due to the results of the 2016 and 2018 surveys, the administration made many changes in an attempt to alleviate the stress students experience. These surveys have been important in showing the administration the effectiveness of such changes.
	“We've done a lot of changes over the past couple years with our bell schedule and the later start time, [among other things]. So we wanted to see if what we were implementing was beneficial to the [students],” said Baxter. “What we found from the survey this year is that [after moving] the start time up a half-hour [students] are actually reporting [an increase of] more than a half-hour of sleep each night, which is really, really good.”
	Despite the effect of previous changes, the results of the 2020 survey still concern Baxter; on average, students are reporting 6.8 hours of sleep a night, with 2.7 hours of homework each day. The majority of students, 59 percent, believe that half to all of their homework is busywork and doesn’t help them learn the material.
“The other thing that we've been working on is homework,” said Baxter. “We're working with staff to [mainly] give assignments that are essential to the learning, because [although] the hours [of homework] that [students] were reporting went down this year, which is good, kids still perceive a lot of their homework as busywork.” 
Baxter also encourages students to be mindful of the amount of work they should expect when choosing their courses. To help students make their decisions, the administration released homework time estimates by class earlier this year.
“[To reduce student stress] we also need families to do their part and kids to do their part. Right now, kids need to understand that they shouldn’t complain about workload if they’re just going to load their schedules up with AP courses,” said Baxter. “This is a collective effort, and to reduce [student stress] we really need kids to understand what they’re signing up for.”
Baxter stresses the importance of flexibility of the administration and its policies concerning student mental health. 
“We’re always open to [change]. We have this current schedule, we have certain initiatives that we're working towards, but we’re always open to modifying things and making things work for staff and students and families,” Baxter said.

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