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2000 ILLINOIS YOUTH SUMMIT
Student Service Projects

BOWEN HIGH SCHOOL, Chicago
Taking Back the Streets

The primary problem in our community is gang violence. Our project is designed to prevent grammar school students from affiliating themselves with gang members. We are going to grammar schools in Bowen's community and sharing experiences we have had with gang members and gang violence. We hope the students will share their point of view and promise to make good choices about friends and life.

CLEMENTE COMMUNITY ACADEMY, Chicago
Silence the Violence-Reading the Signs [ECHO Project]

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead

As part of the Illinois Youth Summit the participants in the Law in American Society Program decided to embark on an "ECHO of Compassion" which states that Everyone Can Help Out. We can join together and make a positive difference. While considering the issues raised in this year's Summit they decided to focus especially on issues surrounding intolerance that affect our students and Community. They are doing activities in collaboration with our Unity Club and its efforts in "Building Bridges to Understanding".

Their agenda included studying the issues raised in the Illinois Youth Summit Resource Guide; administering the Summit survey, administering another Youth Survey-Chicago, and developing their own survey tool specifically designed to focus on intolerance affecting Clemente Community Academy.

Through an analysis of the survey results they decided to host a weeklong event, "Silence the Violence-Reading the Signs" from May 22-25th that would consist of workshops on an array of legal topics. The Peer leaders will facilitate the sessions with the assistance of outside resource persons with expertise in the given topic. These will be interactive workshops that promote education, prevention, and appropriate interventions regarding issues and problems that affect our youth and their Community. In the "Communities of Discussion" workshops there will be dialogues about AIDS, STDs, Drug Abuse, Child Abuse/Spouse Abuse/ Date Rape- Criminal Sexual Assault, and Civil Rights/ Civil Liberties. There will be Peer Helping and Peer Leadership.


DOWNERS GROVE NORTH HIGH SCHOOL, Downers Grove
Bang Bang You're Dead

In support of Downers Grove North High School's program of heightened awareness of the dangers of social intolerance and its too frequent companion, school violence, Mrs. Valerie Sokol's Acting III class and Mr. Gary Mitchell's Political Science classes are presenting William Mastrosimone's one one-act play "Bang Bang You're Dead."

"Bang Bang You're Dead" depicts a young man coming to terms with the consequences of a shooting in the halls in his school. Working through the mind of the shooter, the victims, parents, doctors and even society ask the question "Why?". "Because it was fun!" the boy first answers, but as the play progresses, his answers change, and the audience soon realizes that there is no single solution to this devastating problem.


EISENHOWER HIGH SCHOOL, Decatur

Six classes were involved in the project. Two classes each explored gangs, drugs, and intolerance by developing posters, surveys, and brochures to teach their school about these issues.


FARRAGUT CAREER ACADEMY, Chicago
Race, History and You

At Farragut Career Academy, we have many issues that involve us as students and classmates. One of the main issues here is intolerance - Latinos and African-Americans segregating from each other. We are also concerned about the many members of different gangs who attend our school, those who sometimes cause problems between pupils. For these reasons, we are planning the Race, History and You Convention , which will be held at Farragut on May 13th, 2000. Different students from different backgrounds will be invited to attend. Our goal is to learn from each other's culture and from there see if we can get along better.

We are now preparing in the many ways possible. A big example is Mr. Osaki, a Japanese-American man who visited us on Tuesday, April 11th, and talked to us about his experience in U.S. Concentration Camps during WWII. We have mustered enough information necessary for the convention.

We have learned many things, during this long process of preparation. One is the necessity to stand as one. We shared many things including the suffering caused by white people and we still face problems of discrimination and intolerance. We are still considered minorities, but in reality, these people depend on us.


JONES ACADEMIC MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL, Chicago
Gang Awareness

The students at Jones are raising people's awareness of alternatives to gangs by:


LAKE PARK HIGH SCHOOL, Roselle
Surveying Tolerance

The Lake Park High School Youth Summit Service Project involves an assessment of the tolerance level of juniors and seniors at the high school. The survey is being conducted during the week of April 24, 2000 with a random sample consisting of one hundred juniors and one hundred seniors.

Based on survey results, the students attending the Summit will analyze its results and report these results to the principal. Depending on survey results, recommendations will be given to the principal to be considered for implementation. The recommendations, if any, will pertain to increasing tolerance at Lake Park High School.


LAKE VIEW HIGH SCHOOL, Chicago

Lake View students spent time discussing as a class the three different issues being discussed at this Year's Youth Summit: drugs, gangs, and intolerance. During these student led discussions, students were able to openly present their feelings on these issues and discuss possible causes and solutions with their peers.


MAINE TOWNSHIP SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL, Park Ridge
Skits to Prevent Drug Use

Maine South Youth Summit Participants will be presenting informational skits to the student body. We have chosen the following topics as they are most relevant: mandatory minimums, methamphetamines, and the federal law regarding student financial aid and drugs.

Along with the presentation, we will be answering any questions that our students have after they see our skits. We will also pass out informational pamphlets to the students.


MOTHER THEODORE GUERIN HIGH SCHOOL, River Grove
Open Forum on Intolerance

Mother Theodore Guerin High School chose to work with the issue of intolerance for the 2000 service project. Intolerance is an issue that many students at Guerin feel needs to be addressed. As a result, on March 22nd Mother Guerin held an open forum to discuss intolerance. The forum welcomed all students that wanted to offer insight and opinions about the topic and how it effects their lives. Many students had never experienced being a part of an open forum.

One issue that stirred the most discussion was cliques within the school. It turned out that many students do see some differences yet they stated that they are willing to talk through them. Students believed that the open forum allowed them to have an arena for discussion outside the classroom. It was also stated that forums and discussions need to happen more frequently in order to bring awareness to all students.

In addition to the forum, students at Mother Guerin involved in the Youth Summit also taught three classes on intolerance and related terms. The classes were held during the school day and involved students from grades 9-12. The students conducted 45 minute classes.


MUNDELEIN HIGH SCHOOL, Mundelein
First in their Class

For their Youth Summit project, students from Mundelein High School chose to focus on drug awareness and prevention, one of the issues chosen for this year's youth summit. They worked with an existing program at Mundelein that began three years ago called "First Class." Through the First Class program, all students at Mundelein High School meet in small classes every two weeks to discuss issues relevant to young people, such as respect for school, diversity, and tolerance. Student leaders teach these classes and write the lessons for them.

The focus of the First Class lessons for the 2000-2001 school year will be drug awareness and education. Therefore, the six Mundelein High School youth summit participants thought that working in conjunction with the First Class program would be an effective way to reach all MHS students about this issue.

After reading the information provided by the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, the student representatives prepared several lesson ideas which could be used in First Class sessions next year. Subsequently, the six youth summit representatives met with all First Class leaders and wrote several lessons which will be implemented during the next school year. These informative lessons about the dangers of drugs will reach all students at Mundelein High School.

Through their efforts, the student representatives improved their knowledge of drug abuse and governmental efforts to curtail it. They look forward to sharing their lessons with students at MHS, as well as with other youth summit participants on May 4, 2000.


ST. IGNATIUS COLLEGE PREP, Chicago
Unity Week-Intolerance

This year, our class started out to achieve one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted at our school. And, although all of the programs we designed did not come through on as grand a scale as we expected, I think that we have a lot to be proud of. Just like we expected, some students brushed it off and did not take the week very seriously, but at the same time, there were many students who found it valuable. The effect that it had on these students is what I believe has made the SICP Unity Week an enormous success. I came into this week with the belief that if we helped at least one student reflect seriously on these real-life, important issues of intolerance, than the week was worth while.

It may have been a wake-up call to many of the members of our school community to read the results of the survey in which 95% of our students admitted that they witness intolerance regularly in our school. Now that we can all accept the fact that intolerance is an issue in our school, we can now get on to the next step, which is to begin the process of solving these problems. I think our Unity Week was a fantastic start into that step.

Seniors must make sure that the torch is passed on to the future generations so that they can continue to fight to make St. Ignatius College Prep a unified school and a living example to the entire world.


SENN HIGH SCHOOL, Chicago
Sexual Orientation and Style Activities

We the students of Senn High School have "no tolerance for intolerance." As people, we feel that intolerance is most prevalent in our school and understand our needs as students to actively promote unity and understanding toward our peers. We surveyed about 500 students at Senn on the issue of intolerance (see survey below). These students reported that the most common form of intolerance was toward people of differing sexual orientation and style.

For our service project, we are in the process of writing two short plays that deal with intolerance toward sexual orientation and style among high school students. We will also invite the audience, which will be our peers to participate in an open discussion on the topic. Our plays will promote the awareness of the negative attitudes and actions that students take for granted.


STEINMETZ ACADEMIC CENTER, Chicago
Intolerance

Our project was based on Intolerance. As a multi-cultural school, we believed that this was a key issue in our community and school. We began with a general survey of a large number of students' feelings and experiences with intolerance.

As our service project, we presented a series of skits aimed at increasing awareness of prejudice, stereotyping and intolerance. These were presented to a variety or classes at different grade levels. Topics included discrimination against women, racial minorities, gays, gender bias, religions, and disabilities.

The students also hosted a number of outside speakers to speak to larger groups of the student body at different times throughout the year.


STREAMWOOD HIGH SCHOOL, Streamwood
One SHS, Year 2000

Streamwood High School conducted a community service project titled, "One SHS, Year 2000". The goal was to photograph examples of Streamwood High's diversity and tolerance and then create two collages to be displayed in the Social Studies/ Foreign Language hallway. This project, funded by the Social Studies/ Foreign Language Division, will be a permanent visual display to celebrate who we are. Fourteen students received disposable cameras. They took pictures of people who they felt were examples of our cultural diversity and tolerance. This is currently a work in progress.


THORNTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL, Harvey
Anti-Drug Campaign

For our service learning project we launched a War Against Drugs. First, we evaluated our community and found that drug abuse was an immense problem. We called on the deans and the nurses of the school to get their input regarding school policy as related to the misuse of substances in our school. After getting their views, the next step was to read the articles from the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago resource guide. Once we had information to educate other students, we started to campaign.

We made posters, created slogans, passed out pamphlets, and spoke to entire classes. We informed the students about the Higher Education Act of 1965 (1053). We made it a priority to let them know that if they are convicted of a drug offense, they will not be eligible for any student financial assistance. Most of the students were not aware of this bill. By the expressions on their faces, we could see that the things we said to them make them think!

From this service learning project, we learned a lot. They felt as strongly about a drug free life as the students managing the campaign. We also feel that we accomplished a great awareness of the consequences of drug use and knowledge of the various forms of methamphetamines. This project will make a difference in the youth of Thornton Township.


WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL, Chicago
Survey for Solutions

The law class at Washington High School decided to survey the history class here on all of the chosen topics; intolerance, drug abuse, and gang violence. What we have learned from this survey is that everyone agrees that there are serious problems; however, everyone has a different opinion on how these problems should be handled. Some feel that stricter punishments are the solution, while others feel educational programs are the answer.

The most encouraging thing about this survey was realizing that our generation is genuinely concerned about the constantly arising problems that we are facing. The results of this survey will be made available to our local school council, community organizations, and local government officials.


Last updated: January 2, 2002

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