Carver hosted its 5th annual SpeakUp! event on November 14, 2024. Students, staff, and family members partook in conversations on numerous given topics such as work over stimulation, teen representation, and mental health issues. By opening up about their thoughts, views, and feelings it allowed students and staff to build trust and create a safe space within schools.

Students need the freedom to show that they can be amazing leaders and that they can hold their own. This event showcases those students that are capable of leading their peers into success.

“Trusting the power that the students have is hard because as a teacher we’re always told to make sure students do everything how they are supposed to and their abilities get so lost behind that,” Rouse said.

David Dekorte, a staff participant, shares his views on why SpeakUp! Is important to Carver.

“ Faculty has no idea what students are thinking, what they’re going through, stresses, pressures, things and vice versa. Sometimes there’s not enough communication and I’d like to see more communication in general, whether it’s through SpeakUp! or not,” Dekorte said.

“The loss that his mother had of not really knowing her son being gay, her son having HIV, and just feeling like he couldn’t be honest in life about who he was and feeling like he was never accepted was devastating for her,” Rouse said.

Doing anything to prevent something like this is extremely important. Students aren’t normally allowed to genuinely speak their minds  and that causes a barrier between students and staff and so making this change, just simply giving them a day to speak about everything that needs to be spoken about is very beneficial to everyone.

Having this event at Carver is crucial to its mental health awareness movement. These SpeakUp! events are quite impactful on the school, students, and staff members. This event allows not only the event to impact the students and attendees but it also allows the students to have an impact on the staff as well. 

“ It gives me a kind of insight on some of the students. One reason I want to be involved is because I want to hear student perspectives, and I try to keep quiet when I listen because I feel like sometimes faculty miss that understanding,” Dekorte said.

Students and faculty at Carver need to use this event to break the barrier of distrust  and open their eyes and mind together. A difference can be made.The staff at Carver have high hopes that this organization can make a difference and can open doors for everyone and have so many different outcomes and create such a powerful community together.

The future of SpeakUp! at Carver has expanded beyond just doing one yearly event. Students came together to push for an after school club where they could participate in activities similar to the ones they’ve done in the yearly event and had hopes of inserting this club into the wellness days that they have.

“ After last year's event, students wanted to have another event, because sometimes students felt like at the event that we had back in November, participants felt like the conversations were undone and there was no way to kind of tie things up or tie things together and so our goal is to make sure we have that closure of conversation from here on out,” Ms. Rouse said.