New Del Norte High School group looking to make changes

For some group members, this is as far as they will go with CHANGE because they’re graduating Friday.

“I’m glad we got it started,” said senior Breanna Koepke. “Hopefully, they will keep it going.”

During a meeting last week, some seniors joked that they would force their younger siblings to join the group.

“You guys are the founders,” said Johanna Dantzman, a teacher who helps lead the group. “You started a movement.”

Deborah Kravitz, the project coordinator for Network for a Healthy California in the Del Norte County Unified School District, acquired a grant to put together a youth advocacy group at the high school.

Back in February, the students starting meeting regularly to discuss problems around DNHS.

“We looked at the ideal versus reality,” said Koepke, “and what we could do to change reality.”

The food served at the high school seemed like an obvious issue to tackle because it’s reheated and not very appetizing, some of the students said.

While students would like to have lots of food options to choose from at lunch, Dantzman explained, “the reality is we don’t have a lot of choices.”

But this was decided to be too big a problem to tackle at the group’s onset. The students wanted to accomplish a smaller task first first — “something we could feasibly fix,” said sophomore Travis Simonson.

Then came the idea of clean drinking water and hydration stations all over the DNHS campus.

The water fountains are sullied on a daily basis with chew spit, gum and trash, the students said. The fountains also have low water pressure and the water can spout brown.

Of students the group talked to, most don’t drink from the water fountains, and many buy bottled water instead, which can be costly. This is included in a video the group made and presented to the School Board last Thursday. 

Drinking out of plastic bottles isn’t  the solution because plastic isn’t “good for the environment or our health.” Koepke said.

One possible solution is the creation of hydration stations where students and staff could fill up containers with water. The hydration stations are harder to trash.

The group has thought about selling metal canteens, which would take plastic bottles out of the picture, Koepke said.

But group members are not quite to the point of making a pitch to the principal or the School Board, Dantzman said.

“I see it as an evolving thing,” she said.

In the fall, the group will survey fellow students, analyze the data and determine if access to clean drinking water is really an issue at DNHS, Dantzman  explained.

“You need research to prove your point,” she said.

The students see time and money as being their biggest obstacles and plan to do fundraisers to buy the hydration stations, if that’s what they ultimately choose to do.

The point of being in CHANGE is to make a difference in their school, the students said.

“I really like trying to make changes,” said Koepke, who plans to continue her activism in college.

“Being in a club will give us better leadership skills,” added Aiyana Paschal, a junior.

CHANGE is a great project for students to a part of, said Cerina Aragones, who’s graduating this Friday.

Even though she’ll move on, she said the group is being left in good hands.

“I wish I had more time,” Aragones said.