Knowing who you are and where you belong in a community, especially a high school, is vital to a positive experience. Pinewood is striving to create this community with their new theme titled Culture of Respect: Our Pathway to Belonging. 

   This theme for the year encompasses many aspects of respect and belonging, like race, gender, sexual orientation and other areas of identity and representation in the Pinewood community. However, respect starts on the smallest level and builds its way up. Head of Upper Campus Gabriel Lemmon explains what a culture of respect means for our community, and the path to get there.

   “It starts with picking up trash on the playground, and ends with dealing with the larger structural issues of the world,” Lemmon said.  “A lot of the work done in advisory and lessons in class will reflect this theme.” 

   Lemmon also emphasizes the importance for faculty to participate in the new theme as well, as it is the whole community’s responsibility to develop a culture of respect and belonging. 

   “It is something for everybody to work on,” Lemmon said. “It is something for the teachers to recommit ourselves to, to hold ourselves up to the ideas, and to ask ourselves, what does respect mean?”  

   Educating faculty about school-wide ideals and agendas is important in establishing the theme as a core part of our community. This comes through guidelines that are being presented to all faculty, and which students can follow. Assistant Head of Upper Campus Haley Hemm highlights how respect and belonging are the basis of our community. This comes in the form of the four C’s: clarity, connection, competency and consistency.

   “Making clear expectations and opportunities for students to connect is vital, and in terms of competency, giving students skills to know what respect means,” Hemm said.  

   Above all, consistency is the key to fostering respect and belonging in the community

   Equally as important as the faculty, are the students and their ideas and expectations regarding the implementation of a Culture of Respect: A Pathway to Belonging. Junior Jamie Burton, who is Associated Student Body Culture and Community Chair, explains that a culture of respect is about vibrancy of the student community.

   “The best way I can describe it is that we are building something cool here at Pinewood,” Burton said. “There is this electricity this year, made possible by the students going beyond the classroom, and committing to hang out with new people, and going to after-school events.”  

   The administration hopes to foster this same excitement that Burton has regarding the future of our community.

   “Belonging is the end goal, a culture of respect is the what and how we get there,” Hemm said.