SCHOLARS IN SCAPE

BY MAYA CLEMENT S tudent-led and striving for success, the Students Beat Editor of Color Achieving and Pursuing Excellence (SCAPE) club provides a space where students of BY LUCAS DONNELLY Photographer color can collaborate with and support one another socially and academically. BY EMILY COUCH The club was founded during the 2019-20 school Variety Staffer year by 2021 CCHS alumnus Kurali Grantham, a juBY CADENCE SCHAPKER nior at the time, and 2020 CCHS alumna Rosie Sykes, News Staffer who was a senior. The club was created with the help of the club's sponsor at the time, former CCHS school counselor Dr. Ashlee Holsey, and with help from math department teacher Nicole George, who is a current co-sponsor along with math department teacher Lashanda Young. "My reasoning behind founding SCAPE was to create a community of competition and support for students of color," Grantham said. "Especially (for) Black students, like myself, who have the potential to take and succeed in high rigor (Advanced Placement) and advanced courses at Clarke Central High School, but didn't feel the systemic support to take that risk, to step outside of their comfort zone and enroll in those classes."

Upon Grantham’s graduation, he and Sykes reached out to current co-presidents of SCAPE, Makenna Mincey and Mckenna Ezekiel, CCHS juniors, about leading the club. "I'm proud of (Mincey and Ezekiel) for tapping into their own excellence and being motivated with all the other stuff that they do because they're very involved students. (They are) very passionate and very intelligent," Grantham said.

SCAPE club meets on the first and fourth Thursday of every month in Young’s classroom for student-led discussions on various topics. According to George, SCAPE aims to give students of color access and support in furthering their academic achievements in advanced classes.

Featured: FOCUSED ON CHANGE: Clarke Central High School Students of Color Achieving and Pursuing Excellence (SCAPE) club co-president Makenna Mincey, a junior, writes goals and norms for the club members (left), and club member Jordyn Clark (right) engages in discussion during the club's second meeting of the semester in SCAPE club co-sponsor and math department teacher Lashanda Young’s classroom on Nov. 4. Mincey became the co-president of SCAPE for the 2021-22 school year, and has focused on making changes to rigorous classes at CCHS. “A lot of those students feel very overlooked in those classes, not only by their peers but by their teachers," Mincey said. “And even beyond that, just to have a platform for those voices to be heard so when something is of concern to students of color, they have a backing." Photos by Lucas Donnelly and photo illustration by Eva Orbock

"The goal is educating our students of all the opportunities that they can have," George said. “I'm a freshman teacher, so a lot of freshmen come in not realizing all the things that they could do and this club has done a really great job of exposing them to that information."

Mincey continues to prioritize the same supportive environment and goals that Grantham and Sykes created during the club’s founding. "For a long time, even before I got into high school, I felt really ostracized from my own community because of the classes I took, the teachers I had and the students I was around the majority of the time," Mincey said. "(SCAPE) really did help me to establish a community and to see that there were more people like me, and people who shared similar experiences. And that was important."

According to George, it is common for students of color at CCHS to experience difficulty when finding support for furthering their academic achievements. In order to combat this, SCAPE acts as a support system to help students feel accepted in their more rigorous classes. "I teach honors and on-level and I noticed that many students in our on-level class could really be in honors, but because of circumstances or teachers showing them that they weren’t good before, they are still (in) on-level," George said. "I wanted to be able to show (the students) that ‘No, you have a place in honors (and AP) classes, and it's not just to be the token colored person.' Classes change when there's more (students of color) in there (and) I just wanted to be there for anybody "(SCAPE) really did help me to who is pursuing that." Mincey's plans for the future of SCAPE are establish a community and to see already in sight. "We are always looking for new members andthat there were more people like we want to reach as many students as possible. I me, and people who shared similar really want to see (SCAPE) grow to a level where it is being advertised by teachers (and) adminisexperiences. tration," Mincey said. "Every (AP) teacher, accelerated teacher should be advertising (SCAPE) as something for their students. I want us to build in a way (so) that it's not hard to attract new -- Makenna Mincey, members, because they have seen the effects (of CCHS SCAPE co-president, a junior SCAPE) and they resonate with it." O

Featured: SHARING HER RESEARCH: University of Georgia doctoral student and research assistant Damaris Dunn presents to English department teacher Jennifer Tesler's senior Multicultural Literature class on Oct. 20 as it related to students' research projects. Dunn explained her research on the concept of Black joy to Tesler's and English department teacher Erin Horton's classes. “I've been working with young people for a really long time, so I have a sense of what works and what doesn't work," Dunn said. "I respect young people and I think that's what came across today. That this is (the students') space, and I'm a guest, and I want to learn from you just as much as I can offer you something as well." Photo by Lucas Donnelly

Damaris Dunn, a University of Georgia doctoral student and research assistant in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice, visited Clarke Central High School English department teachers Jennifer Telser’s and Erin Horton’s senior Multicultural Literature classes on Oct. 20 to speak about her research in Black joy.

Dunn was one of many speakers that engaged with Tesler’s senior English classes as a part of her students’ individual research on an Athens figure or community and their homeplace, with a focus on flexible research processes and anchored in the essay 'Homeplace: A Site of Resistance' by bell hooks. Other speakers included local artist Broderick Flanigan and former CCHS principal and author Maxine Easom.

The idea for the project was first sparked by discussions of the Harlem Renaissance. Tesler's classes read literature about Harlem, New York -- where Dunn is originally from -- such as Langston Hughes’ poetry and 'The Poet X' by Elizabeth Acevedo. "(Dunn) is friends with (Acevedo), and so that's one of the conversations that she was able to have with the kids with the students. 'The Poet X' is set in Harlem, and Ms. Dunn has worked and has grown up in Harlem, and so that was another connection," Tesler said.

Tesler’s interest in homeplaces shifted more locally through discussions with English department co-chair David Ragsdale and Burney Harris High School alumna Barbara Archibald. Ragsdale connected Tesler to the Linnentown community through his organization of a panel discussion at CCHS in February 2020, and Archibald introduced her to CCHS alumnus Michael Thurmond’s biographical account of the Clarke County School District’s desegregation in "A Story Untold". "The students' work was based on researching an important landmark that was vibrant during the Harlem Renaissance, and a person that was attached to (a) place (that) was important to them (or) had an emotional connection," Tesler said. "We're going to do the same thing here in Athens. We're

BY CADENCE SCHAPKER school teacher, to working as a community school News Staffer director in New York City and creating spaces for BY AUDREY ENGHAUSER Black girls to be, (I witnessed) those spaces as sites of Print Editor-in-Chief joy," Dunn said. Dunn’s research inspired CCHS senior Nyvia Brown to explore similar work in the future. "(Dunn is) a Black girl, she plays basketball, I felt that. And the fact that she wants to learn even deeper about her Black history and Black women, I felt that that was something that I would like to do, too," Brown said. In Dunn’s seminar, she aimed to create an open and safe environment in Tesler’s classes for student discussions about Black joy. "I've been working with young people for a really long time, so I have a sense of what works and what doesn't work," Dunn said. "I respect young people and I think that's what came across (in my seminar)/ That this is (the students') space, and I'm a guest, and I want to learn from you just as much as I can offer you something, as well." O

going to look at important historical figures, and how they were attached to places."

Dunn’s aforementioned area of study, Black joy, focuses attention on transforming the environments of young Black people in order to make room for more joy. "I think about Black joy as a site of world making. What that means is that joy in spaces where people are not traditionally afforded, or whose stories are kind of akin to pain and suffering, that joy is the life force -- the thing that allows Black people in particular to keep going," Dunn said. "That might look like a student in the hallway laughing and joking around and listening to music, because that's the transition from class to class, and not being scolded for that, right, but recognizing that we need space to play and be."

Dunn uses her own experiences with sites of Black joy in Harlem as a basis for her research, in addition to outside research on other work in the field. "From personal experience working as a high