Mirna Peralta

May 28, 2019

SLE Reflection

For my Senior Learning Experience I chose to create a video, volunteer, and speak at a

conference. I created a video about Garinger students’ experience with school segregation. I

introduced the video with a brief history of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ segregated past and

how they have attempted to fix this. I then spoke to a few students from Garinger about how they

feel about attending a school with a majority of beginner teachers, what they think should be

done to fix the school segregation issue, and what they would like to say to the Board of

Education. I was happy to learn that other students felt the same way that I did about this issue. I

also enjoyed listening to how other students feel Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools should tackle

this problem. The students I talked to had great responses and really showed some of Garinger’s

excellence. I uploaded the video to YouTube, shared it to my Instagram story, and I also asked a

classmate to post it onto The Garinger Rambler’s website. I shared my video on different

platforms to try to reach as many people as I could. By creating this video I was hoping to bring

awareness to an issue that is affecting many students’ lives daily. Aside from the video I created,

I also spoke at professional development and networking conference hosted by Teach For

America called NetSum. This NetSum was about education equity. A few people from the

Leadership Development class at Garinger and Ms. Imhoff spoke at the conference and then

hosted our own class about what the Leadership class at Garinger is doing to create a more

positive school environment and what we are doing to bring more awareness to the inequity in

education throughout Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. I also volunteered as part of my service

learning experience. On February 9, 2019, I, along with other people from the Leadership class
and other Garinger students came to school to renovate an empty green area we had in the

school. This area is now called “The Block”. We created small pieces of art, dug out areas to

create the outdoor classroom, planted trees and other plants, and built small chairs and benches.

So far, more and more students are using this area. Teachers are also using the outdoor classroom

area. This area is helping students academically and socially.