The sophomore and junior benches are gone. The senior lounge door has been removed. But the greater conversation of how St .Paul Academy and Summit School can become a safer and more welcoming space for everyone is happening right now. On Oct. 19 during Tutorial in room 223, fifteen students, some selected from elected school groups and others who applied and were selected by a group of teachers continued this ongoing conversation in the first meeting of “The Safe Space Task Force.”

Upper School Dean of Students Max Delgado, and US School History Teacher Nan Dreher, will help advise the group in future meetings that will be held every two weeks. Senior Nadia Goldman is president of this student led group.

The debates will continue over whether the benches and doors should be reinstated. However, “It would be wrong of us as an administration to assume that just changing spaces would address all the underlying issues that those spaces were creating,” Dean of Students Max Delgado said.

Sophomore Emma Truman serves on the task force.  She applied because she is “always interested in things that are up for debate.”

“My goal [in serving on the task force] is for everyone to have the safest school experience possible,” senior Shaymus O’Brien said.

The question commonly being asked is whether certain spaces at SPA make students uncomfortable or if they cause a real harm or risk to individual identities.

“Uncomfortable is ok, unsafe is not,” Truman said.

“It’s not a comfort issue… we’re trying to address the issues of people’s identities being targeted,” Delgado added.

In the first meeting on Monday, the task force had a conversation about intent vs. impact. They talked about how the majority of harm at SPA doesn’t come from macroaggressions, or an overt and intentional action of discrimination, but from microaggressions, subtle and often unintentional acts, and the gap between one’s intent and the impact of one’s words or actions.

“Unintentional comments can have really serious impacts on people. We may not be able to totally prevent this from happening but we can try,” senior task force member Riley Wheaton said.

“It would be nice if everyone respected each other and put that respect before their own entertainment. A lot of hurtful comments are made as not very funny jokes and it would be nice if certain people would grow up,” Nadia Goldman said.

The task force will analyse the data from the “Safe Space Survey” of last spring. It will also begin to plan inclusive advisory activities, start initiatives, and begin recommendations on next steps in the process of making SPA a safer space for all.

In the “Safe Space Survey,” 89% of male students and 66% of female students said they feel welcomed, valued, and safe at SPA. However, only 58% of male students and 40% of female students said all students feel welcomed, valued, and safe at SPA. This discrepancy between personal and perceived feelings of safety is one of many pieces of data the task force will look at.

“For the students who say the system is working… I think it’s great, but if they’re also reporting that they see these invalidations, then ultimately things aren’t going to change…It’s the students who are within that 80% that feels valued, heard, fully included at SPA… if those students feel like they can opt out of the larger conversation and not interrupt it when they see it, then it’s gonna be a real uphill climb. The bystander has a lot of power to create change,” Delgado stated.

Wheaton had advice for how to best move forward in the process of making SPA safe for all: “We’re all teenagers and we’re all going to say things that we don’t mean, or say things that we mean differently than they’re heard, but the test of the success of the task force will be how students handle this situation and whether we can decrease unintended harm.”