For the eighth year in a row, students and teachers from almost a dozen different schools gathered in the Middle School’s Doc Wilson Hall. This year’s Saturday Summit, held on Nov. 16, was co-hosted by Masters and Rye Country Day School (RCDS), with around 100 students arriving from independent schools nearby. The theme of this year’s conference was “Reframing Our Space: Navigating Approaches to Social Justice Work.”
According to the Dean for Inclusive Excellence, Esperanza Borrero, the day began with student workshops, many led by student ambassadors from Masters. The day progressed through additional workshop sessions and affinity group meetings, followed by guest speaker Vincent Madera, who spoke for an hour on the theme. The conference ended with a cheerful party that included a DJ.
The Saturday Summit was created as a more accessible alternative to the National Student-led Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC), which only accepts six students per school. Borerro said, “Many students feel like SDLC is a life-changing conference. It also is very similar [to Saturday Summit] in that it focuses on issues of equity and social justice, there are affinity groups, and is meant to be leadership training.”
The student ambassadors attended weeks of training sessions leading up to the conference to hone their presentations. Students divided into affinity groups after the workshop.
Senior Jordan Lee found that breaking up into groups was crucial to the summit. She said, “Having that group where you have shared experiences is very key. I was thinking today at our black affinity group, what would it be like to have this conversation with someone who doesn’t look like me, or have the same experiences as me. I think it would be so different and I wouldn’t have the confidence to speak up and say what I need to say.”
She wasn’t the only student to appreciate that specific part of the schedule. Jayde Lynch-Mensah, a freshman at Holy Child, said, “You have your own ideas and your own opinions and when you branch out into a bigger space it helps bring out new ideas.”
It was Lee’s second time attending the conference, facilitating the workshop, “Echoes of Harlem.” The workshop centered on the impact of the Harlem Renaissance, and how it contributed to people’s self identity. For her, a big aspect of the conference was meeting people. “There’s a lot of new people this year so I learned about people from Rye, Holy Child, King. Hopefully I’ll see these people around and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I know this person from Saturday Summit.’”
Another Masters student, Emily Negron attended the summit for the first time, plans to return next year. She said, “It was really fun, I got to connect with people who I’ve never met from other schools. And I got to connect with my ethnicity and talk about experiences that I’ve gone through and listen to other peoples stories and relate to them.”
The Director of Public Purpose at RCDS Rebecca Drago said, “It’s a pretty magical experience for young people in the world of DEI and social justice to be connected to students from other schools who are navigating similar challenges at home or in their school communities who are excited to talk about these issues, who are excited to make change in the world. I think it’s inspiring and connective.”
Negron said, “I learned to be proud of my culture. You can leave here and go to another community but your ethnicity doesn’t leave you, so it’s better to be proud of it than to try to hide it.
