Not in Our School (NIOS) Week, an event aimed at raising awareness about the hate and discrimination that occurs at Gunn, was held the week of April 14 through 18.

Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) advisor and math teacher Daisy Renazco led a group of students, including Student Executive Council diversity commissioners senior Zayden Tethong and junior Nidia Morales, GSA president junior Jessie Belfer and Youth Community Service (YCS)/Interact co-president senior Naomi Shachter, in creating activities for the campus.

The Not in Our Town movie was broadcast Monday all day. "It’s a documentary covering how different communities come together to stop the hate, including the smaller things, like bullying and harassment, but also the bigger things, like the murder that occurred in a middle school recently," Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Director Becki Cohn-Vargas said.

The Not in Our Town movement in Billings, Montana inspired a national movement. When Cohn-Vargas learned of this movement three years ago, she decided to start a district committee which brought students, teachers and community groups together in support of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) people. "I can’t say we’re the only ones doing this, because there are other schools that have had Not in Our School activities, but we’re definitely one of the leaders, and trying to inspire others to follow our example," Cohn-Vargas said.

Students who watched the video were surprised at the proximity of the hate crimes. "I guess it's kind of surprising, because it's so close to home, and it's not too long ago," sophomore Brandon Cheung said. "You don't think about these kinds of things in this area."

Cohn-Vargas emphasized that the Not in Our School Week was not just about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. "[NIOS] was started by the District Committee to Make Schools Safe for LGBTQ Students, but it focuses on stopping all hate crimes, including hate crimes against ethnic groups, and hate crimes against religion," Cohn-Vargas said.

After a viewing of the video documentary, some teachers held student discussions. "The one thing I want students to learn is that if they’re being bullied or harassed, they’re not alone, and they should get help and support," Cohn-Vargas said.

On Tuesday, students participated in an interactive poster activity called "You Are Not Alone," in which they wrote down personal experiences about discrimination. "We want the students to reflect on their feelings of being an outsider and of being judged unfairly, and ask students to share their experiences with other students, so they can see that it’s not just happening to them and that other people are experiencing it too," Renazco said.

Students went to the quad on Wednesday to sign up for different organizations that try to raise awareness to the need of acceptance for people's differences, including the Human Rights Campaign and Erase the Hate, according to Renazco.

Since the national Day of Silence occurred during spring break this year, Gunn’s alternate Day of Silence was on April 17 to coincide with Not in Our School Week. "We want to show in a much more noticeable demonstration what [LGBT] people feel everyday," Belfer said. "The 'silence' felt by LGBT students is not literally an inability to speak, but an inability to express oneself because of one's sexual orientation or gender identity. We're trying to show the Gunn community that the silence experienced by LGBT students is real, and that we need to create a more open and accepting environment to try and end it."

There was also a "Breaking of the Silence" event after school on Thursday on the quad, where "all of the students who had refrained from speaking all day [had] a big communal scream to symbolize the breaking of the silence," Belfer said.

On Friday, students participated in a Dissolving Stereotypes activity, which was organized by the YCS/Interact Club. "Dissolving Stereotypes is an activity where participants write some of their stereotypes on rice paper, and drop it into water," Shachter said. "In the water, the ink lifts off the paper and dissolves."

The event was organized in hopes of spreading awareness about the prejudice that happens. "I think that most people believe Gunn is a community without any stereotypes or discrimination," Shachter said. "In Not in Our School Week, people become aware of some of the hate that occurs. It is really difficult to address discrimination when most people think that it's not really happening."

Though Not in Our School Week was first introduced to the school two years ago, this year’s event was held in memory of Lawrence King, a California eighth grader who was shot and killed on Feb. 12 by a classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression, according to an informational packet distributed to teachers.