BALTIMORE — As the debate surrounding Critical Race Theory continues in the background, students at Harford Public Schools have created a space to talk to each other - openly.
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"It started by us just speaking to one another, sometimes about current events, sometimes about each other," says Nia Robinson, a rising senior at Harford Technical High School.
Robinson joined Voices of Equity during the last year, when she found out about the program from an email.
"It's a very no pressure situation, it's very much a safe space," she says.
Michaela Blackburn's experience with her school's Voices of Equity group, sounds very much the same.
"It's a safe space for students to share things that have they've either witnessed or has happened to them, and we will try and come up with solutions to prevent it from happening again, or happening to someone else," says Blackburn.
Blackburn, a rising eighth grader at Bel Air Middle School actually worked with her school's principal to bring Voices of Equity to the younger students.
"I had heard that there was a Voice of Equity at the high school," she tells WMAR-2 News.
And the students talk about ways to improve equity.
"We could also educate people like bystanders on how to, like, step up and say, 'Hey, this is wrong,' and how to do that," says Blackburn.
Robinson explains how the different groups will sometimes come together for summits.
"We also, like with summit's for example, we'll talk to administrators, or younger students or students the same age as us. And just tell them simple things like the difference between equality and equity," says the rising senior. "Just education, allowing them to know no things that maybe aren't super common to be taught maybe in a traditional classroom."
For more information about the Voices of Equity at Bel Air Middle School, click here.
