About 50 faculty members and students attended the latest meeting of Pascack Valley’s School Safety Team in the auditorium Tuesday. With the letter published in The Smoke Signal last week and the accompanied hype in the media, students have been surrounded with talk of racist and otherwise biased language in the school.

Mrs. Christie Rossig, Ms. Debbie Squiccimarri, and Mr. Matthew Will are the advisors to the HIB law-mandated group. They discuss incidents of bullying, harassment, or intimidation in the school. Normally a small group of people, the School Safety Team opened their meetings up to the general public a few months ago.

At this meeting, students were given the chance to air their views of the recent events and suggest possible solutions.

In light of the buzz surrounding the school, many expected a larger turnout and expressed disappointment at the lack of students getting involved toward the end of the meeting.

Junior Laura Friel said, “I expected this auditorium to be filled. In every classroom, I’ve had a discussion with almost every student that I know.”

“Where is everyone?” Will said, in agreement with Friel. “We’re not gonna be able to come to a conclusion that’s effective unless everybody’s working together, everybody knows what’s going on, and everyone has all the facts.”

Junior Evan Brignola, the first to speak at the meeting, was adamant that a change in the curriculum to learn about different cultures would be an ideal start to resolving the bias present in our school.

“We don’t really take the time to look at everybody’s background and culture,” Brignola said. “Now would be a good time to look and appreciate the culture instead of just ignoring it.”

Charlie Leppert, also a junior, felt that educating the faculty as well as students would be prudent.

“I think we really need an effective systematic change,” Leppert said. “We don’t need one speaker during one pascack period or one class where you talk for five minutes about people of color.

“You need to have it be mandatory that the administration and faculty are educated on and effectively learning about combatting systems of oppression and acting in solidarity with their students.”

Leppert felt that using an outside source, such as American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, as well as The Anti-Defamation League — whom Mr. Erik Gundersen, the superintendent of the Pascack Valley Regional High School District, and other administrators met with yesterday — would be the most effective.

“An outside source,” Leppert said. “I keep stressing that because the people here, we don’t all know what we’re doing and there are people who are trained professionally in combatting systems of oppression.”

Another junior, Gabi Cabrera, felt that, along with education, information should be more easily available to the general public.

“We need to have transparency at our school,” Cabrera said. “We ignore what’s actually going on.”

Mrs. Tracy Recine, an English teacher, thought a broader problem was the lack of respect in the school.

“The hallways are a problem here,” Recine said. “Every time we hear about these racial slurs, these homophobic slurs, it’s in the hallways.”

Many students and faculty members agreed.

The meeting took a more rambunctious turn when Rossig mentioned the controversial nature of Pascack Valley’s school logo.

“It’s cultural appropriation,” Leppert said. “It’s barbaric that we use a group of people and an oppressed minority as a mascot and there’s no way that that’s acceptable moving forward.”

“I don’t understand how a human being can be the mascot of a school,” said freshman Chandni Shah. “It’s politically incorrect. For an educational institute to promote this is very wrong.”

Shah also stood and read a poem that she said she’d written just before The Smoke Signal’s letter was released, called “Human.”

Other students disagreed, saying that the logo was meant to symbolize bravery and that the context in which we used the Indian was not offensive.

“There are so many high schools that use a group of people as a mascot. The Knights, the Highlanders,” said junior Zak Terzini. “You can totally use a group of people as a mascot. It’s just the light you’re shedding on them.”

As the meeting wrapped up, students refocused on solutions, such as reporting it if a student uses a slur. The administration has been discussing possible solutions with students as well, including a mandatory homeroom during Pascack Period to encourage student interaction.

“I feel like if I had one word to describe this school right now,” Brignola said, “I’d say it’s very ‘clique-y’.”