HOLDING THE TENSION not on what to say but on how to hold a room when the room is scared. Civil discourse lessons embedded in advisory and community time, K through 12. Lunchtime dialogues, hosted by students themselves, that drew consistent attendance because students had learned— perhaps before some of us adults had— that these conversations were worth having.
The guiding principle underneath all of it was simple: cancel culture, social media, and the instinct toward avoidance have created a generation of young people who are remarkably risk-averse in exactly the moments that require courage. We were not going to contribute to that. We ask our students to do hard things every day. This is one of them. And this kind of hard has a name: it’ s called citizenship.
Building belonging also requires the whole community— not just students in classrooms, but parents and families alongside them. Families who feel known by the institution bring a different quality of presence to hard moments. They are partners rather than critics. That relational trust is its own form of infrastructure, and we have needed every bit of it.
The Work Didn’ t Stop— It Deepened
Then came the 2024 election.
We updated our Freedom of Expression and Civil Discourse statement before the
“... cancel culture, social media, and the instinct toward avoidance have created a generation of young people who are remarkably risk-averse in exactly the moments that require courage.”
election season began— deliberately, because we knew what was coming. The national climate had grown more toxic. Political rhetoric had coarsened in ways that were showing up not just on screens but in hallways. Antisemitism was rising. Islamophobia was rising. Anti-Black racism, never dormant, was finding new permission. Hate directed at immigrants, at LGBTQ + students, at anyone who could be made into a symbol— it was everywhere. These were not abstractions. They were the daily context our students were carrying into our buildings.
McDonogh has not been immune. We have had incidents. We have had moments where students said things— or did things— that made other students feel unsafe, unwelcome, less than. Every school that tells you otherwise is either very lucky or not paying close enough attention.
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CSEE Connections Summer 2026 Page 9