Project Safe Zone welcomes new adviser

Every year at Project Safe Zone (PSZ), a group of students gathers to educate their fellow peers about the social and cultural problems that pertain to gender and sexuality. This year, Samo science teacher Graham Lockett will be running the seminar instead of English teacher Kitaro Webb.“I wanted to be involved with something outside of my normal teaching hours and I felt this was an amazing opportunity to do that,” Lockett said.15 years ago, PSZ was founded by Samo alum Daria Mazey (’00) and Language Department Chair Kelly Bates. Bates was the advisor for 10 years until four years ago, when the job was transferred to English teacher Kitaro Webb.“[Mazey] designed the whole program for PSZ after she participated in a retreat that raised cultural awareness,” Bates said. “She came to me and she said ‘Let’s do something like this around gender awareness.’ and I said that’d be fabulous.”After four years as PSZ’s adviser, Webb stepped down from the position due to an increased number of his classes this year.“There was an email sent out by [Bates] asking for teachers who would be willing to take on the role of teacher advisor for this program,” Lockett said. “There were not a great deal of responses, but when I read the description of PSZ, I was really interested and wanted to get involved.”Lockett is working with head facilitators Diego Bravo (’15) and Charlie Kinsinger (’16) not only expand to upon the program’s success, but to modify the curriculum in various ways. With Lockett joining the program, some of the retreat’s activities and discussions have changed to become even more inclusive for all participants.“We made the day more intersectional, instead of focusing solely on queer issues.” Kinsinger said. “We wanted to make it more about sexism and racism in addition to the oppression of queer people.”Bravo and Kinsinger worked with Webb last year as facilitators and were chosen to be the students heading the retreat for the 2014-2015 school year. According to Kinsinger, the change in teacher advisor — while unexpected — has kept the program pointed in a good direction.“Because LBTQ+ issues are something that I personally feel strongly about, this felt like a good opportunity for me to not only to work in an extracurricular environment, but also to who need extra support or could use PSZ for good to educate and spread awareness,” Lockett said.PSZ takes a lot of hard work and effort that is put in by Samo students who are passionate about the retreat. The facilitators of PSZ, for the most part, are students who took part in PSZ as participants in years past. This years facilitators include Gabe Mugalian (’15), Maxwell Devita (’15), Makaya Washington (’17) and Glennon Davalos Stanton (’16).“This is my third year as a facilitator and I’ve absolutely loved this event every time I’ve been a part of it,” Devita said. “I attended the retreat as a student in freshman year and immediately connected with the atmosphere and the people and I learn something new every year.”PSZ is a learning opportunity that is open to all high school grade levels and is being held on Mar. 13, 2015 on Samo’s campus.