It’s no secret that Triton High School, which is located in Byfield Massachusetts is not a diverse school  

According to the Triton High School profile 2018-2019, there are 686 students enrolled and 93 percent of them are white while 7 percent are African American, Native American, or Asian American. Triton isn’t the only school with this problem.

Riya Patel, a student at Oakmont Regional High school in Ashburnham Massachusetts, explains her story about what happened at her old school when she was faced with a racist encounter with her teacher.

    “Don’t even get me started said Patel. At my old school, the teacher ignored anything I said and when I asked one of my white friends to say the same exact thing to her as I did she would answer her immediately. “I was the only who actually did work in that class but, then again she would grade me lower then the grades that I deserved and then she would give the students in my class that didn’t have no idea what was going on, what they were doing, or do any of the work, and would get  bad grades on tests and quizzes, but yet she would give them a higher grade which made no sense.”

    In more diverse schools people of color often feel more welcomed.

Esteban Gomez, who attends Notre Dame Cristo Rey, located in Lawrence was asked if he felt out of place or uncomfortable being different. “No I don’t feel uncomfortable because I’m not like that said Gomez I could have someone that hates my guts next to me and I won’t feel uncomfortable at all.”

   The Triton Voice reached out to one Triton student of color and one white student. We then compared and contrasted their opinions on diversity and what we needed to do to help improve on this issue. We also talked to two teachers of color. Each person had very different responses and experiences. Later, some research was done on what a racist encounter does to the human brain and some of the side effects that come with it.

After being asked why Riya didn’t stand up for herself to her teacher she finally said,

“I never said anything because in my culture we were always taught to respect people older than us said Patel. I didn’t have time to argue and, I was moving anyways. We are always taught that the school is a place of education.  All though teachers are supposed to treat their students the same but , I guess not.”

We asked a junior Alyssa Montesanti in Triton explains how she felt about people from different backgrounds being welcomed and what we can do to improve on this.

“I think Triton can be unwelcoming to people because of the numbers like, different races you could be the only diverse one in the class because there are not a lot of diverse people in the school,” Montasanti says. “To help this problem I don’t think you can directly do anything about this because, blacks are unwelcomed in Boston. I personally think this will take more time than us being accepting.”

  A teacher Ivan Ferron who worked at Philadelphia and Massachusetts with over 25 years of service spoke about his experience traveling from different schools.

“I was a high school teacher in Philadelphia for 10 years, and Lawrence, MA for 3 years. I have taught at Triton for over 12 year. I have been proud to teach and to serve in each of these very different communities. Overall I don’t think a school can improve diversity …Triton continues to serve an increasingly diverse population from one year to the next. I also don’t think I have ever had an racist encounter of any sort.”

 Laura Kuleszka who has worked at Triton for less an a year, says, “ I have lived in this area for more than 20 years. I just think it’s not an affordable place, it’s not near where lots of minorities can get to and to from work easily, and there is some public transportation but that’s directly to Boston, but I noticed living here for all of these years that it has been more diverse than it was before.”

Some might also say that people in Triton can be ignorant says Mia Mace-Gonzalez “people know I’m Puerto Rican but they still call me Mexican”. “In the beginning of the school year I was in the library and this kid was fighting with this girl and was calling her names and I told him to stop and he said to me, ‘shut up you….”

  Investigating the similarities and differences from different schools and comparing them to the Triton community has been an eye-opener. Every person has a different perspective on the way they view their own community and Triton community. Overall where we live people are pretty open to other people and race doesn’t get in the way. There has been some cases but that doesn’t make Triton racist.