Facing and Embracing Diversity

Change is rarely easy. Even when we think it’s going to be, most of the time our expectations and realities refuse to line up.

Ten years ago a need arose for more schools to relieve overcrowding in Duluth and surrounding areas. Sadly, while this was beneficial in relieving the problem, it also resulted in the rezoning of good friends to a new community. This was very hard but recognized as necessary and reluctantly accepted. Then rumors started that neighborhoods within the Duluth City Limits and walking distance to Duluth High School were petitioning to be included in the new boundaries. This was not recognized as necessary nor accepted and when it became a reality, it was assumed the rumors had been true.  Our town became divided. Many, feeling abandoned, were hurt and angry while others were happy to be aligned with the “new and progressive."

Change -- Some fought for it, others against it. All had expectations. Were expectations realized, exceeded, or totally unrealistic and off base?  We had friends that while fighting the change were redistricted and other friends who felt the need to move into the new district. We knew some who moved away totally and some who moved into the very neighborhoods that while within walking distance to DHS, we had heard petitioned to be redistricted. So many perspectives!

We stayed. My husband is a stalwart believer in staying the course. But I must be honest. I was fearful. My expectations bounced between two extremes. The first resembled something close to an urban inner-city with gangs, dilapidated buildings, etc., and the second coming close to resembling Mayberry. Of course, I wanted the second and felt that it had been torn from my grasp by Gwinnett County Public Schools. Where would we land? What would happen?

The years following that initial challenge have been a blend of yet more challenges and lessons. Staying in Duluth has resulted in exposure to cultural and economic diversity beyond that which I’ve previously experienced. Through it all, I must say that usually my expectations have been filled with much more fear than the reality warranted. In fact, through my proverbial 20/20 hindsight, I am very glad we’ve remained in Duluth. 

Our children have garnered a perspective by walking, living, and breathing with a very practical-thinking economic majority that I’m not sure they would have gotten as easily in surrounding school districts. I feel certain we're now qualified to write the book: “Wants vs. Needs and the High School Student: Do you need this to survive?” 

Also, because of the number of non-traditional American families at Duluth, we’ve been challenged to reflect on our own culture, how we take it for granted, and the perspectives of others who have grown up without that culture. An example of that would be that parents not raised on Friday Night Lights and traditional Americana high school memories, don’t pass such traditions down to their children. This particular reality left DHS short on traditionally minded, middle-class American kids who grew up training for their high school glory days. And being a 5A school in one of the most competitive regions in the state, we found ourselves struggling athletically. The traditional American view of “successful schools = successful athletic programs,” left some with a negative perception of Duluth High School. And we were in turn left to deal with those perceptions and often the jibes that accompanied them.

Also, due to the then-new boundary imbalances, we found ourselves with empty classrooms and a much diminshed PTA budget. GCPS then decided to use the empty classrooms for the temporary home of a charter school. While this filled space and was very nice for the charter school, it didn’t mend community rifts nor fill our school with children/families from Duluth.

Over the past 10 years, our family has had children moving through high school, middle school, and elementary – in Duluth. And while the success of our schools and community was not something I was always confident in as I, many times fearfully, pondered the future, it is however, something I’m glad our family stuck around to witness. I believe that because of an economically and culturally diverse student body, our two oldest children have entered a challenging new world prepared for its realities, not only academically, but socially as well. We are very proud of our diversity at Duluth High School, have come to recognize it as an asset, and consequently strive to guard it.

Yes, Duluth High School has been challenged much and to much has adjusted.  Please don’t misread the adjustment to the challenges of 10 years ago as complacency or passivity. We have simply found positives that made the adapting to negatives possible. While an outsider’s expectation of what DHS should look like may not have been met, in many ways, this insider’s has been exceeded.

The views expressed here are, as far as I am aware, mine alone.