NHS Students To Gather For A Community Conversation

By Eliza Hallabeck

While Community Conversations, underwritten by the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund, have been held in Newtown annually over the last few years, this weekend will mark the first student-driven Community Conversation.

The Community Conversations were first brought to Newtown in 2009, when roughly 100 community members gathered together over several meetings to discuss the topic of bullying. A year later another group of roughly 100 community members discussed the topic of underage drinking, and last year’s Community Conversation centered around character development.

The goal of the past conversations has been to bring together a diverse group of residents, regardless of their socioeconomic status, age, gender, faith, or racial ethnicity. This year the group of students working to run the Community Conversation said it is focused on high school students.

Susie Gisin, one of the high school students working to bring the Community Conversation together, said she hopes as many students will participate in the Community Conversation this Saturday, March 10, as possible. The event will be held in the NHS cafetorium. Students were asked to e-mail NHS student Hannah Maret, MaretHannah@gmail.com, ahead of time to participate.

Student volunteers were trained as moderators in advance of the conversation, and Susie said those moderators will work on Saturday to bring all of the participants together and stay on task.

“We’re trying to get as many high schoolers as we can to come,” said Susie, “and they are going to discuss what is really wrong with school and what could make it more comfortable and enjoyable.”

Susie said the event is strictly for students, and is expected to run for about an hour and a half to two hours, with a break for lunch. It is scheduled to start at 11 am. During the event participants will be broken into smaller groups to discuss the topic of how school could be improved, and afterward the groups will report back to the larger group as a whole. 

“It should be pretty helpful, we’re hoping,” said Susie.

Susie said Hannah has been the main leader in bringing the Community Conversation to the high school level, and Susie has been in charge of spreading the information.

Food and beverages will also be offered to the students who participate in the event.