Led by Alysa Perreras and various students, TCS started the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice committee. Their focus is to create better environments for students, teachers, and parents at school.

The DEIJ committee is in charge of creating a plan, so there is more support for these types of school subjects. This initiative started about two years ago. This is now an obligatory course for parents and teachers to continue to be a part of the school. Students will be given some talks and shown some videos during their mentorship and advisory hours.

“We want to create a school that, like the name of the committee says, is more diverse, equal, just, and also more inclusive. We are looking to make the school this way in all ways, from administration to the students,” Camila Ceballos, Grade 12, said.

There are two separate committees, one for students and one for staff, and they want to spread their ideas and make sure that these topics are discussed at school.

“The committees are about having a collective voice that communicates our method and our goals when we talk about DEIJ as a priority at our school,” Alysa Perreras, innovation for social change teacher and DEIJ leader, said.

DEIJ wants to make everyone feel included, have a voice, and work for a purpose beyond just sitting around and meetings.

“The purpose of the committee is to make our commitment to justice more transparent, more clear, beyond just performance, but it’s real action. It’s just not sitting in spaces and having conversations. The goal is to turn those conversations and turn them into actionable work,” Perreras said.

The committee changed a lot of people. Alysa mentioned that some students that worked with her in the past have worked with her again this Christmas on a different project. The students that work in it right now say it has changed them as people too.

“I think it changed me as a student and my perspective because I am now more aware of my environment and how biased I am within it. I think these are crucial notions because the idea is to make everyone in an environment feel safe,” Ceballos said.

Both parents and students need to teach each other based on the big generation gap between them.

“It is not only Alyssa’s opinion and point of view about justice work. It is rather a community of voices so that our committee brings together a collective voice and helps process how we move forward and make decisions,” Perreras said.