Amid the usual craziness of first period in the ASB room at Mount Si High School, there’s a small crisis happening. Where is the “E”?

“We need to put the ‘E’ up,” says senior Kasey Channita, and a few minutes later, ASB advisor Charlie Kinnune is reminding students to find and hang that letter.

It’s the last day of PRIDE Week at Mount Si High School, but they can’t finish the word without the giant “E” poster.

Today, “E” is for Elegant Day, reflected in many students’ fancy dress, but effective on Monday, Feb. 14, it is the crucial last letter in the school’s new philosophy, attitude, and general way of being.

PRIDE stands for perseverance, respect, integrity, dependability and encouragement, and it’s what a group of students think will transform Mount Si High School.

“With everything that’s been happening, with all the drama that’s been in our school, this year has really been kind of the changing year,” explained senior Morgan Seymour, who along with Channita led the 60-member student caucus group in creating the PRIDE acronym. The suicide death of a classmate last fall was one of the things that sparked the change, she said, bringing students together.

“We’ve been like ‘OK, this is enough, let’s change our school’ … and I think that everybody is so much more willing to work together and be the best school that we can be.”

Sixty students, recommended by teachers and representing all grade levels and school subcultures—band, culinary, drama, sports, etc.—have been meeting since September, 2010 on how to do that. Among other activities, they developed the PRIDE acronym, finalizing it in December, and gradually unveiling it over PRIDE week to students.

In the morning announcements, students announced the letter of the day and what it means, said Seymour. “And then we gave them a challenge, like (for perseverance) set five goals for yourself this week, and work towards attaining them. Or for integrity, make sure you’re doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.”

The PRIDE campaign launches Monday, Feb. 14, when students and staff gather in the morning to hear motivational speaker Mark Scharenbroich (www.nicebike.com) at a Respect and Unity assembly. The core group of ASB members who helped with PRIDE week, Channita, Seymour, Shayne Allen, Jeremy Knight, Kassidy Maddux, and Maura Williams, have high hopes for the push.

To Channita, it could mean that “everyone enjoys coming to school, and that each day they want to be here… They feel that they have a foundation in their school, where they can be treated as equals,” he said.

“I want us to realize, every student in this school, that we’re all in it together,” says Knight, a sophomore. “Why don’t we make it the best that we can?… I think every school has this, but every once in a while, people are mean unnecessarily. I think that with this assembly, I want to bring this school together, so we can stop doing that and we actually turn around and go out of our way to make other people’s days good.”

Allen, a senior, wants the assembly to speak to those who say that bullying and harassment are just part of life. Mount Si can, he says “become a school that said ‘No, it’s not a part of life. We don’t want this to be a part of our life.’ We want to set people up in school so that when they grow up to be adults they’re respectful, they go out to the real world with the tools that they’re going to need, not just educational-wise, but as a person.”

“We do need to be the school that sets the example for everyone else,” says Williams, a junior.

Teachers and administrators from Mount Si and other district schools will hear from Scharenbroich again in the afternoon, at a teacher workshop. This event is just as important as the student assembly, Seymour said, because students need staff members to join the campaign, too.

All of the students agreed when Allen added, “I think one of the biggest problems is mutual respect between the staff and the students.”

Williams also got full agreement with her summation of the school’s challenges as: “Bullying and respect for each other, in all different groups. That’s why we’re having this assembly, people aren’t unified, and so they don’t respect each other.” PRIDE, Williams continued, will help address all aspects of those problems.

Channita and Seymour emphasized that they were part of a large group working on the PRIDE movement, but both took strong leadership roles because of their past experiences in high school. Channita said he didn’t enjoy school until he started getting more involved his junior year. “When you get involved is when you really take it upon yourself to make school go well, and I wanted to share that with other students,” he said.

Seymour had been involved, but didn’t feel she had much of a voice, at first.

“Now that I am older, I feel more comfortable (speaking up), and like Kasey said, school’s so much better now because I’ve had the opportunity to improve it, to try to improve it.”