After the success of the initial meeting of the Student Summit on Race in January, five new high schools joined the original 14 for the second meeting at Ritenour High School on Feb. 25.

Each school presented a brief explanation on their sister school visits, which was the universal project that would be carried out in each individual school. Raven Bullard, sophomore, took the stage and explained U.City’s mentoring project to the other schools in the audience.

“It’s cool because we were a little different than everyone else,” said Bullard. “We did a little sister school [Jackson Park Elementary] and we are trying to carry the racial acceptance of the elementary school to the high school.”

After the presentations, a student panel was set up with one representative from each school to discuss questions posed by students, administration and even Dr. Margie Vandeven, Missouri’s Commissioner of Education.

Questions like “how teachers could help the process of eliminating racism in classrooms” and “what were the different responses to the Ferguson situation throughout different communities” were answered by the high schoolers on the panel.

Rontrell Gentry, junior, who represented U.City in the panel, felt that it was a good opportunity to let the St. Louis community know that U. City was trying to change.

“I think there are adults who think we aren’t really serious about this,” said Gentry. “People say they are going to do things and they don’t and so we get to show that we are actually going to do something about the problems around race, starting with talking about it.”

Schools will meet to share their progress and celebrate their accomplishments again in May.