2001 Youth Summit Service Projects

Chicago High School for the Agricultural Sciences

We have proposed a student center for monitoring police stops. The idea for the center is to collect data that may be used to determine if profiling is being used against CHSAS students. We want to examine the nature of police stops and provide a defense against excessive police stops based on possible profiling. We are currently working with the community police to inform people of unwarranted stops of CHSAS students. We have also been working with the Community Action Policing Strategies Program.

The intention of this program is to educate the CHSAS students about what to do in case they are stopped. Many students are unaware of what really is legal when they are being stopped. We would like to provide a place for the students to record their stops and describe in detail what happened to them. Our basis for this program is the excessive amount of students reporting incidents of being stopped and searched for no apparent reason. Discrimination is humiliating, and the only way to get around it is to know about it.

This program will educate CHSAS about discriminating and this important topic. We hope that by working with the Community Action Police Strategies, the organization will help us determine if there is a case for profiling, and if so, it will provide us with a way to have it investigated.


Roberto Clemente Community Academy

The Center for Legal Education offers three legal education programs of study. They are the AP National Government & Politics course, the Law in American Society course, and the Career Development Center for Law & Justice course. In each, the participants are asked to involve themselves in service learning projects under the banner of the ECHO Project, which stands for Everyone Can Help Out.

Our ECHO Project will join in a collaborative, cooperative, and coordinated effort with other students and teachers in a Garden Gallery Project . This is an effort to "take ownership of the Clemente gardens and grounds" and our focus will be to utilize the outside stage to hold Speaker Forums under the Banner: "Voices of Freedom, Cries in the Wilderness." The forums will be facilitated by the Peer Leaders and will involve outside resource persons related to the session's topic of concern. The intent will be to offer an opportunity to dialogue between these persons with expertise on the subject and the audience participants. The model will be a Chautauqua.

Topics will be chosen from the IL Youth Summit issues and from the participants' concerns and research.


Downers Grove High School North


American Government students at Downers Grove North High School share a passion for improving public morality, specifically respect for one another in our school and community.

Our service project begins with a look at our own student body. Have we lost respect for one another? Do we make moral choices? What do the students think about our school environment? Is it tolerant? How does the faculty and staff feel? What insight can our dean's add? Student and staff responses to our inquiry will guide our project. Not only will we use surveys, but our participants will also complete field research using the following questions: How do we behave in the hallways? Are there observable behaviors that indicate signs of respect or lack thereof? What consequences result from disrespect? From violence?

The results will be analyzed and reported in an article for the school newspaper. Moreover, we will develop a presentation for our school Respect Committee with suggestions for improvement.


Downers Grove High School South


There are three main components to the Youth Summit service project at Downers Grove South. The first is a survey, which students from three classes will conduct with the student body on gun safety/control issues. After tabulating the results, they will share it with the Downers Grove community.

The second component is a panel discussion on April 23, with a police counselor, an administrator and a local political leader.

The third component of our service project is to distribute and promote the "Tip Line" information in order to help "Keep South High Safe."

Additionally, ten students from Downers Grove South will attend the Summit May 1, and all participants will complete the "Guns" area of the Youth Summit curriculum.


Elgin High School


Students at Elgin High School enrolled in Leadership class have compiled a list of questions they plan to use as a survey for fellow students, teachers and support staff. The survey addresses individual's perceptions of police use of racial profiling, experiences with racial profiling, and their own stereotypes of different races. The results will be compiled and shared with the school and local agencies.


Farragut Career Academy


Our goal is to find out how people feel about faith-based organizations within the community. What we have done to accomplish our goal is survey people in our community and clergy members. We also got our school's policy on character and moral education. We plan to get all our information together and post it on the internet. Right now, we are going to gather the information together and see how our surveys have different information.

Farragut Web-Site Address: http://www.farragutca.org

   
Questionnaire
  1. Are you involved in any religion?
      Yes____ No____   Don't know____

  2. Do you think that Congress should make federal funding available to faith-based organizations to provide moral and character education in public schools?
      Yes____ No____ Don't know____

  3. Do you think that this Faith-Based organization is a good idea?
      Yes____ No____ Don't know____

  4. Would you give your tax funds to a school to teach morals?
      Yes____ No____ Don't know____

  5. Would you let your child go to a public school that has moral education?
      Yes____ No____ Don't know____

  6. Do you think that all the public schools need moral and character education?
      Yes____ No____ Don't know____

  7. Do you believe that this policy will make a change in the country?
      Yes____ No____   Don't know ____

  8. Do you think that students will behave better after taking this education?
      Yes ____ No____ Don' t know____

  9. Do you think that accepting this policy will decrees the violence and many other bad things among students?
      Yes____ No____ Don't know____

  10. If this policy is defeated, do you think that violence will continue increasing and probably become worse?
      Yes____ No____ Don't know____



Jones Academic Magnet High School


AWARENESS
"Only when we come together, can we survive."

In a partnership with Jones High School and the Illinois Youth Summit, the student body conducted a series of activities to create a better living environment in the school and in the streets. The students at Jones decided to get rid of prejudice and create an atmosphere in which we can all feel comfortable expressing ourselves.

A series of activities were planned out for the students at Jones. During the second week of April, our school celebrated "Diversity Week". During the course of the week, various activities were carried out resulting in more unity among the population. The last day of Diversity Week was a day in which a series of workshops were conducted to educate people on various topics: people, cultures, ways of life, backgrounds, etc. These are just some of the activities that student leaders planned out. Throughout all the activities, no student was excluded, and every pupil, teacher, and staff member was a part of the project.

As a part of the social morality branch of the Summit, Jones has added one new club into its diversity. Not only is the African American Club working hard to create unit, just last month, an assembly took place in school to celebrate Black Heritage. Among other assemblies was the Asian Pacific Islander Celebration. The Association of Latin American Students is also planning a day of festivities during May celebrating the diversity of the Hispanic culture in our school. The newest addition to our clubs, was the Gay-Straight Alliance Club. It aimed to focus on another part of our society which is often subject to discrimination. By educating ourselves and setting an example, we can lead our community into a more accepting, respectful, informed and loving society. The message at Jones is clear. Discrimination and prejudice are not welcome here.

Following the Summit on May 1st, a small group of students will be traveling to Peoria to spread the word about the Youth Summit to other teens and adults who were not a part of the Summit. An all school-community survey is being organized to get more feedback from students regarding the acts of violence and ignorance that have been slapping the nation. The results will be tallied to better inform our community on the opinion of the public. Jones is reaching out to the community to get things out into the open. To top it off, another group of students attended the Anti- Handgun Rally at the Dirksen Federal Building on October 2nd. The Debate Team chose racial profiling and prejudice this year for their discussion topic. They will be traveling to Boston through the year, they have brought up into the open a sad but true topic.

Why stop at one project when we can do more? It is never enough, because there is always something else that can be done to create awareness and to make it, day by day, a better place to live in. The only way that things will ever change is if we get together. The only way to get together is to appreciate the differences in ourselves and in others. We have the power to make the difference. There is no single way to start, the most important thing is to get started, and Jones High School has begun already!


Kenwood Academy


Youth Summit participants at Kenwood Academy chose to address character and respect issues within their school community. We perceive a lack of respect between many of the students and teachers at Kenwood Academy, and we would like to change this and other character issues in our school. To do this we plan to have an open forum in which Local School Council members, teachers and students will be present to discuss these issues and try to develop solutions. We will video-tape this forum and then present the video during advisory periods in classes throughout our school.


Lake View High School


For our service project we have written a film script and plan to produce it this spring. The film has three scenes. The first depicts a teacher engaging a class in a discussion about racial profiling. During the discussion one student shares his personal experience with racial profiling. The second scene starts with a group of friends walking down the street while nearby a robbery takes place. The students are then stopped by police and one of them is racially profiled as a suspect, and later wrongly accused. The last scene is a "wrap-up" discussion during which all the Youth Summit participants will discuss racial profiling. It is our hope that students who view the video will gain awareness and understanding of the racial profiling issue.


Lincoln Park High School


At Lincoln Park High School, we decided to focus on racial profiling for our service project, but we felt that there was a greater problem with "teenager" profiling. Our school is located on Armitage and Halsted, which is a very wealthy neighborhood where many young professionals reside. We feel that the high school students often get blamed for most problems in the community. However, many of the problems blamed on Lincoln Park High School students are not actually our fault. On the smallest level, we are usually given dirty looks by community members even if we are doing no harm and we're simply on our lunch break. We would like to improve relations between members of the Lincoln Park community and Lincoln Park High School students, most of whom live in other Chicago neighborhoods.

Lincoln Park's community meetings are held in our school's auditorium somewhat regularly. We've decided to state our opinions, as students, about how we feel we are being treated at the next forum. At this meeting, we will also listen to the opinions and views of the Lincoln Park residents. We believe this will occur either in late April or early May. We are very excited to let the community know of our feelings. We also look forward to creating a more positive relationship with Lincoln Park residents through open dialogue and communication.


Mother Theodore Guerin High School


Youth Summit participants from Mother Theodore Guerin High School developed a program in which they taught eighth graders about the Illinois Youth Summit issues, focusing primarily on the topic of Guns. They lead discussions on trigger lock and video game policies, and then held debates on both these topics. Afterwards, they had students vote to determine whether any of them switched their positions on the issues. As a culminating event of the lesson, each of the Guerin students told a story about gun violence to show the eighth graders the real and human side of the gun statistics that were presented.


Mundelein High School


Mundelein High School took advantage of a program called 1st Class. 1st Class is a required twenty-five minute class every Monday that gives students time to teach other students important information about drugs, the community, and our Youth Summit project. We designed a movie/lesson that deals with issues concerning drugs and guns. Mr. Sooley was so satisfied with our project that he asked if we could present in neighboring schools.

Our goal is to teach about life situations while depicting the choices available when dealing with guns and drugs. We feel that students can understand the importance if we try to give examples of Real Life situations.


Percy L. Julian High School

Public Morality



Percy L. Julian High School conducted a service project entitled "Public Morality." The goal was to photograph examples of public morality within the school. The Student Council/ Student Government sponsored this project. The project will allow us to examine student behavior and interaction throughout the school day. We will use these photos to stress the need for positive interaction and kindness among the student body. We are optimistic that we can improve upon moral and helpful behavior in our school.


Proviso West High School


"Gun Violence Awareness Day" was held on Tuesday, April 17 th at Proviso West High School. The day involved three different experiences. It began with SAVE (Students Against Violence Everywhere) members teaching Civics classes about gun related issues. Next, all students were given an opportunity to sign a pledge against guns. Finally, we hosted a guest speaker to address handgun related violence issues. Teachers had an opportunity to bring classes in to hear the speaker.

We felt that addressing this topic in school is critical in light of the recent school shootings. Our club has been active in hosting fund raisers for victims of gun violence, as well as, domestic violence. We are hoping that by raising student awareness we can prevent violence in our school.


St. Ignatius College Prep


The Effect of Violent Video Games on Children

Objective: Is the Indianapolis law which states that children under the age of 16 can not operate games that featuring graphic violence an effective way to stop violence among youth?

Procedure: Students from the Urban Studies Course have researched a variety of nonviolent video games that children can access from the Internet. These games will be introduced to a variety of male students from the Chicago area. Prior to playing the games the St. Ignatius students will ask the child a few questions about the video games the children normally play and how they gain access. St. Ignatius students will give the children an opportunity to evaluate the games.

Analysis: Students from the Urban Studies Course will compile a report based on the evaluations. The report will be given to local grade schools and local politicians.


Evaluation
Pre-Test questions
  1. Age____________________
  2. What video games do you like to play? Why?
  3. How did learn about these games? Do you play them at home, at school, with friends, etc.?
  4. Do your parents know that you play these games?

Post-Test Questions
  1. Rate each game from 1 - 5 (5 is the highest)
  2. What did you like about the game?
  3. What don't you like about the game?
  4. Do you think you would prefer to play this game instead of the games you normally play?
  5. How many hours to do you spend playing video games?
  6. Do you think violent video have an affect on you? On other children?


Urban Studies is a Peace & Justice course offered to seniors. We intern at Juvenile Court, Cook County Hospital and schools 4 days a week. Throughout the year, we have met many children that have been victims of violence. For that reason the issue of guns and in particular the Indianapolis law has impacted us greatly. We decided to do this project after debating the law in class. Half of the class believes the Indianapolis law is an effective way to decrease violence and half of the class believes that this is an ineffective law and will have no affect on children and their response to violence. We decided to test this law by talking to the people that will directly be affected - children.


Steinmetz Academic Centre
"DATING VIOLENCE PREVENTION"


Steinmetz students decided to examine the topic of abusive teen relationships as a part of our discussion on morality in America, particularly among teens. Our goal was to increase the awareness of this issue as well as what steps to take for help in ending dating violence and abusive relationships both, for affected students and people they know. Towards these ends, our classes developed brochures and handouts on this topic for distribution among the student body. We also presented numerous programs with speakers from various agencies to offer different perspectives on this important issue. Many resources for help were made available to our students.

We chose this topic because of its importance to many teens and others in American society. Many cases of dating violence and abusive relations go unreported. More alarming, many victims unfortunately are unaware they are in fact victims. We learned that abuse occurs in many forms: physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, etc. Early warning signs are often evident and dating violence often occurs in set cycles. There are many more places for abused victims to turn to for help than there were in the past.

After completing this service project we all became more aware and sensitive to this and related issues. We also developed methods of helping others who are victims of these relationships. Unfortunately the media often glorifies dating violence and stereotypes women and places them in submissive roles.


Streamwood High School

One SHS 2001

As a continuation from last year, the students of SHS went out into the school with cameras to capture images of their diverse school community. The pictures will then be cropped and pasted to form a mosaic, which will then be hung in the hallway of the social studies/foreign language department. This project was chosen because it reflects our school population, which will compared to our village government makeup. We will use this information to write up a report of whether or not racial profiling is an issue in our community. This report will be published in our school newspaper, and students will be able to respond with their views on the issue. This is currently a work in progress...


Thornton Township High School

Nikita Abernathy
Dominique Bell
Angel Grant
Tiffany Griffin
Nia Johnson
Tryanne Mitchell
Eric Phillips
Sherika Perkins
Brandon Ward
Rajiv Warfield


NO GUN SHOULD BE SOLD
WITHOUT A TRIGGER LOCK


Students for Mrs. Franklin's Foundations of Social Science class chose to address Guns (the need for more legislation promoting trigger locks). With the recent occurrences of shooting in school across the nation, our focus was directed to gun safety in the homes with children. The students planned and conducted a pre-Youth Summit on March 28, 2001. Staff members from Senator Peter Fitzgerald's and Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s offices were invited guests. The students shared their perception regarding the need for additional legislation and displayed their web page designed to communicate their ideals across the nation. The pre-Youth Summit was a success and the ideals of the students were communicated and taken back to the offices represented. Our web-site address is: http://sites.netscape.net/wildc86/homepage .

We learned:
  1. Guns with trigger locks are less accessible.
  2. Trigger locks have improved their design.
  3. Never keep a loaded gun in the home.
  4. If you find a gun do not touch it. Get help!
  5. If you must have a gun your home, you must have a trigger lock.
  6. Boys are more attracted to gun than girls.
  7. There is a need for more legislation, mandating trigger locks that could decrease number of incident of violence in schools.


Thornton Township High School


Derrick Bender
Jovan Blevins
Satarus Brown
Gary Cooper
Takeia Johnson
Erica Pearce
Matthew Segura

Who Gets Stopped?    
Who Gets Held?
Who Gets Kept?





Thornton Township High School Law Club chose to address the problems of racial profiling and disproportionate minority confinement (DMC). These problems affect our community and we want to make the people aware of them. The law club has developed a pamphlet that defines and explains DMC and racial profiling. This pamphlet will be distributed in our community.

The Law Club chose to do this project because we see the effects of DMC and racial profiling everyday in our community. This problem is something that directly affects our community, therefore we wanted to inform the community about DMC and racial profiling.

We learned:
l.) The meaning of DMC and racial profiling.
2.) The causes and effects of DMC and racial profiling.
3.) There is no simple solution to DMC.
4.) Profiles are used everyday in police work.


George Washington High School


For our service learning project, the students of Mr. Sellers Law Class will try to encourage students to attend CAPS meetings on a regular basis. CAPS, short for Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy, is Chicago's new weapon in the fight against crime. It is a new partnership between police and the community. CAPS brings the police, the community, and other City agencies together to identify and solve neighborhood crime problems.

We hope to start a campaign and we plan to pass out flyers, go to classes during advisory and talk to other students and explain the CAPS program. We also plan to announce the dates of these meetings on the PE system daily and if possible develop a bulletin board. We will encourage students to go by telling them how our school is always a topic at these meetings and it is never good news but always complaints. So now, students can attend these meetings and represent our school and at the same time help the community and themselves. Also, students will receive service learning hours when they attend these meetings, which is a graduation requirement.


Willowbrook High School


Tolerance through Understanding



"Prejudice is the child of ignorance."
-William Hazlitt
In preparation for the Illinois Youth Summit, Civitas (Willowbrook's Social Science Honor Society) chose to focus actively on encouraging tolerance, respect, and understanding of the diversity within Willowbrook's student body.

To actively promote these attitudes, the group has planned and will host two panel discussions as part of Willowbrook's International Week, held April 30 th -May4th. All classes interested in attending the discussions will first complete a survey designed to focus and identify misperceptions and stereotypes held by students regarding races, religions, and cultures. The presentation will consist of one panel comprised of religious leaders of various sects from the community. The other panel discussion will be comprised of Willowbrook students of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. Both panels will offer insights and questions facilitated by the student leaders, as well as ask questions from the student audiences, regarding understanding of the speakers' respective cultures and ways of life.

After the presentation, audience members will be asked to complete a second survey hopefully showing improved results, increased understanding, and tolerance of the differences of the various members of the Willowbrook community.