Senior Project Update #1

 For my senior project, I have elected to analyze the data from a survey conducted by Catlin Gabel ARC (Antiracism Collective) earlier this year. This survey focused on race and ethnicity at Catlin and had over 30 questions (multiple choice and free response), gauging over 270 responses from the Upper School students who received it. For this project, I am working with a few members of ARC who helped me conduct the survey in February. I will use their help to present my analysis/report/presentation to Aline, John, and Jasmine. I have already picked out a date and time for this meeting. 

ARC has been a very important part of my life this year. Combining social justice with a grassroots student movement on campus has been an amazing experience for me, and one that I'd love for future Catlin Gabel students to have. This year especially has highlighted the importance of social justice involvement for youth and the change that we can make. I've been inspired by the energy of my generation, our capacity to make tangible change, and even fellow students and community members on campus. For my senior project, it only seemed right to combine all of these things, along with what I've learned from Tyler in Honors Statistics this year, to give back to my community.

The race/ethnicity survey itself has a few different components. First, it asked respondents to provide their racial/ethnic identity and the grades they've attended at Catlin. Then, the survey itself was split into questions about the classroom environment, school curriculum, school culture, and free-response, with the option to elaborate on answers at the end of any section. The goal of this specificity was to hone in on who is struggling on campus, who is served by the structure of our institution, and places where we can concretely improve. While the information I've gleaned from the survey responses is vitally important in addressing current systemic racism at the school, I want this survey technique to be used for posterity. I will recommend in my report that it be reproduced annually or bi-annually so we always have updated information from the student body. I understand that the analysis I'm conducting may be detailed and difficult to recreate, but there are some basic statistics we can look at to mark declines and improvements in the treatment of race and ethnicity at our school.

Here are my goals for this project:

1. Create a comprehensive and detailed statistical report, outlining the results of the survey.

2. Summarize and understand qualitative (written) responses from each free-response question and use these to create recommendations for further improvement in the school.

3. Present my findings in a formal presentation to John, Aline, and Jasmine on June 14th. Work with fellow ARC members to create a version of the presentation that can be sent out to the upper school students.

I hope to achieve these goals through diligent work, perseverance, and continued guidance from Tyler. I am very excited about the end product of this project. I also wanted to note that I am giving back to my community in other ways, to help fill the time not spent on this project. I have been volunteering at Virginia Garcia Health Center vaccination events and using my Spanish to help guide people and encourage vaccination.