Working Together for a Peaceful School : Education: Multicultural task force grapples with issues that sparked a racially charged fight at Trabuco Hills High School.

Since a racially charged fight upset the entire Trabuco Hills High School campus six months ago, students, parents and educators have come together to make sure such an incident doesn’t happen again.

Students say they believe a lack of communication and understanding about cultural differences contributed to the December fight involving a dozen Latino and African-American students, which was sparked by a stare that was perceived as disrespectful.

In response, school officials organized a multicultural task force involving more than 75 students, parents and teachers, the first of its kind in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District.

While the task force has helped break down barriers for many on the increasingly multiracial campus of 1,700 students, much of its work will be continued this summer in preparation for the coming school year. This year, about 76% of the students were white, 10% Asian, 10% Latino and 4% African-American.

“We’re trying to learn from it, improve from it,” Principal William Brand said of the fight. “We don’t want to just fix (things) for the moment, we want to put something in motion that will be ongoing.”

The racially mixed task force, which includes such student leaders as Jazmine Bevel, Lee Ettleman, Larry Harper II and Nikki Shanehchian has focused on four primary objectives: improving communication, increasing multicultural understanding, making curriculum changes and decreasing violence on campus.

Students say tensions, especially between Latino and African-Americans, had been building for some time, and many minorities, especially newer students, felt alienated from campus activities.

“Finally something happened,” said Shanehchian, who will be a junior next year. “I guess we got sick of it, the same thing going on, over and over again.”

One of the first things the task force plans to begin this fall to help improve communication is a buddy system that matches new students with older ones who will serve as role models.

“We just want to let (new students) know that communication is open and that they can talk,” said Ettleman, who will be a senior.

As for improving cultural understanding, the students want to expand the campus multicultural club and add more events to promote school unity, such as dances and assemblies. An international fair held this year was especially successful at building campus unity, the students said.

Parents are also searching for books or materials highlighting contributions by different minority groups that could be added to the curriculum. And in the future, there’s talk of forming a student court to promote peaceful conflict resolution.

For the most part, students say the many task force meetings this year and special lunch sessions with Principal Brand have helped to calm people and open communication.

However a recent incident, in which a racial epithet directed toward African-American students was written in clay on a wall of lockers, increased some tensions, and shows there’s much work to be done before everyone actually becomes closer, students said.

“It think it’s starting to happen,” Bevel said. “But it will take a while until everyone feels comfortable.”