The Highland Experience

Every school wants to open students up to new learning opportunities so they can expand their mind and really discover what it is that they want for their future. For that reason, every school requires students to take classes in different fields. Everybody must meet a certain number of arts, science, elective credits, etc. Schools hope that along the way these classes will spark an interest, and students will find their motivation.
But just as important as diversifying education opportunities is diversifying perspectives. Learning how different people view the world can only enrich an educational experience. For this reason, the types of conversations that can be had in the Salt Lake City School District and Granite School District are likely different than those in the Alpine District.
The Salt Lake City School District (SLCSD) has three high schools: Highland, East, and West. Comparatively, Granite School District (GSD) is much bigger than SLCSD and their schools have a much higher enrollment rate than SLCSD schools. Granite has eight high schools: Cottonwood, Cyprus, Granger, Hunter, Kearns, Olympus, Skyline, and Taylorsville. Demographically, each school within each district is unique. This article will specifically focus on Highland and SLCSD high schools compared to the GSD high schools closest to Highland.
Salt Lake City School District and Granite School District are diverse school districts. Per the October 1, 2023 SLCSD Enrollment Report, about 61% of its high school students are minorities and per the October 1, 2022 GSD Enrollment Report, about 53% of its high school students are minorities. Highland is less diverse than its sibling schools with East being 65.58% minority, and West being 73.24% minority, but it is more diverse than its neighboring granite school district high schools. Skyline is only about 18% minority and Olympus is 17%. This means there are a wide range of students with different experiences and backgrounds in both districts.
In an article written by Dr. Katherine W. Phillips, the Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics Management at Columbia Business School, Phillips talked about how diversity makes people smarter. She went in depth about different research done by various credible universities such as Stanford mentioning how diversifying perspectives leads to improvement in collaboration.
“People who are different from one another in race, gender, and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences to bear on the task at hand” Phillips said.
Research indicates that everyone benefits from diverse experiences and backgrounds. Diversity fosters creativity and inspiration. When collaborating with a group of peers, each person ideally contributes. It’s important that each person brings a unique perspective because unique perspectives lead to better ideas and more creative outcomes. If everyone had the same experiences and same thoughts, nothing new or exciting would ever happen. Expanding a person’s viewpoint and way of thinking helps each person to grow individually and in the case of Highland, it helps the school grow together.
Representation of those affected by under-representation isn’t just for those people to worry about. It’s up to everyone at Highland to continue making those voices heard. Highland Principal Jeremy Chatterton continues to focus on bettering the school with each coming day. In relation to diversity, he is focusing on improving representation at Highland.
“One of the areas that we’re really looking at is how can we increase diversity in a lot of our groups,” Chatterton said. “SBOs which I think we’ve done a better job of the last couple of years, I think it has become a much more diverse group. We still have some issues with some of our teams and clubs in terms of expanding diversity amongst those. But it’s also challenging.”
Increasing opportunity for growth at Highland is vital if this goal of increasing diverse representation is to be achieved. Since the school has seen improvement in this area in the past couple of years, Chatterton is hopeful to continue that pattern of growth. It takes a village but it’s a goal that Highland will keep working towards.