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Destination Imagination team heads for global finals
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Seannille McRae, an eighth-grader at Rayen Early College Middle School in Youngstown, shows off her Destination ImagiNation team’s SNITCH box, where students can anonymously report bullying at school.
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Eighth-graders Shawanda Jones, Keilah Bryant, Sade’ Poindexter, Seannille McRae and Alexis Saunders saw bullying as a problem and decided to do something about it.
Their solution and how they presented it earned them a berth next week at the Global Finals for Destination ImagiNation in Knoxville, Tenn. The contest runs Tuesday through May 29.
The girls, all students at Rayen Early College Middle School, picked bullying as the problem for which they wanted to find a solution.
“We gave out surveys about bullying,” Seannille, 13, said.
Most middle-school students surveyed indicated they’ve either been victims of bullying themselves or have witnessed it. But they said they didn’t report it because they were afraid or because they didn’t want to snitch, the girls said.
Lois Thornton, the Destination ImagiNation coordinator for the city schools, said the girls took snitch, which has a negative connotation, and gave it a positive one.
“We made SNITCH boxes,” Keilah, 13, explained. “It stands for Someone Not Intimidated by Troublemakers, Cliques and Haters.”
The locked boxes, which are to be hung in the middle schools, allow students who witness bullying to note what they see and deposit the information into the box anonymously.
Adults at the schools would be responsible for retrieving information from the SNITCH boxes, Shawanda, 14, said.
Celeste Bryant, Keilah’s mom and the team’s volunteer coach, said the team believed it was important to allow students to maintain anonymity. The boxes will be hung in discreet places in the schools.
The surveys asked students if they’d ever been bullied, why they were bullied and if they’d witnessed bullying, what they had done about.
One student’s answer to why she was bullied was particularly poignant.
“She said, ‘Because of the way God made me,’” Sade’, 13, said.
The surveys were anonymous, so the team doesn’t know what the responder meant.
The girls perform a skit as part of the Destination ImagiNation presentation.
They wrote an anti-bullying song sung to the tune of “The Brady Bunch” theme: “We take a stand, And lend a hand, Against bullying at Youngstown schools ...”
Counselors from United Methodist Community Center also helped the girls to complete their project.
The girls said they wanted to be involved in DI because it’s fun.
“It’s fun, but it’s a lot of work,” Thornton said.
Bryant said the team got a late start on their presentation and devoted a lot of time to prepare for the state competition in March.
“We worked after school and at home,” Keilah said.
“And on weekends and on the phone,” Bryant added.