Social Justice is defined as the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities. This is the main goal that the Social Justice Club here at GlenOak is working to accomplish. 

 Academy Principal Jerad Buck and help from Academy Secretary Janisha Gibson, Student Service Specialist Susan Davis, and Community Liaison Brandi Williams. 

The Social Justice Club works with all different kinds of students at the school. They come together to help better students. 

One thing that they do is they go once a month to Glenwood Intermediate to mentor and work with  kids there that may have trouble with their attendance or grades. 

They also go to other county events that other school’s Social Justice Clubs go to where they learn about social justice, diversity, and other big topics that are in the world today and how they handle them. 

“It’s a really good opportunity for kids to get involved,” Buck said. 

The club has a meeting right before the events that they plan on attending. This is to combat the busy schedules of students that may have after school activities.

“We tried after school, but after school is tough, because everybody just goes everywhere and has their own different activities and clubs,” Buck said. 

The Social Justice Club was originally started in either 2016-2017 (the date is not currently known), and was originally created because of a county initiative through Stark County. For Buck, the theme of social justice has always been an interest of his. 

“It was just always an interest in working with PBIS, (Positive Behavior Intervention Supports) and just working with kids, and I just said that I would take the lead on it and I’ve been attending ever since,” Buck said. 

Currently, the Social Justice Club has 30 members, but about 15 to 20 of the students go to the events at a time. 

Sophomore Loreal Everett  joined Social Justice to help get different messages out on how to better understand one another. An example is the start of ending separation like race issues, sexism, poverty, etc. 

“My favorite thing about it is when seeing each other’s struggles, differences, and similarities, it shows me even though we are all different, we have so much to relate to,” Everett said. 

Everatt encourages other students to join Social Justice for the impact one can make in the community, for example, through the mentoring kids at Glenwood that was mentioned above.  

“Things like that make you want to come again, meeting after meeting,” Everatt said. 

If any students are interested in joining Social Justice, they can visit the lower B office and let Mrs. Gibson know. She will write names down on a list and students will be invited to join Social Justice on their next event.