Program puts students up to the challenge




STEPHANIE BERTHOLDO/Acorn Newspapers DARE TO CARE- A banner signed by hundreds of Agoura High School students serves as a pledge  to  show  compassion.  Las  Virgenes  middle  and  high  schools  recently  held  Rachel's Challenge assemblies to encourage students to be kind to each other. From left, Agoura High Assistant Principal Chris Regan; Principal Larry Misel; Brandi Orozco, a friend of Rachel Scott, the first student to be killed in the Columbine High School massacre; and Diane Addison, chair of the Committee for Safe and Drug Free Schools.

STEPHANIE BERTHOLDO/Acorn Newspapers DARE TO CARE- A banner signed by hundreds of Agoura High School students serves as a pledge to show compassion. Las Virgenes middle and high schools recently held Rachel’s Challenge assemblies to encourage students to be kind to each other. From left, Agoura High Assistant Principal Chris Regan; Principal Larry Misel; Brandi Orozco, a friend of Rachel Scott, the first student to be killed in the Columbine High School massacre; and Diane Addison, chair of the Committee for Safe and Drug Free Schools.


Rachel’s Challenge, a school presentation based on the life and journals of Rachel Scott, the first person killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, spreads a message of kindness and compassion to local students.

Rachel’s message is simple- kindness begets kindness and compassion is contagious.

Brandi Orozco, a friend of Rachel, hosted the October assemblies at Agoura and Calabasas high schools and the three middle schools in the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

The Scott family decided to take positive action and launched a “chain reaction” program to encourage and share the kindness and compassion Rachel had written about in her journals.

At the parents’ assembly at Agoura High School, Orozco showed news clips of the massacre, and video footage of Rachel’s family and friends talking about the impact the 16-year-old made on so many people during her short life.

In one news clip, Rachel’s father Darrel said he was inspired to start the nationwide school program after he read his daughter’s journals, which outlined tenets to live by, and then watched the video created by the teenage killers. At the time Rachel was writing about starting a “chain reaction of kindness and compassion,” Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were plotting the high school massacre, and calling for a “chain reaction of hate.”

The assembly was both graphic and very emotional. Students were shown footage of the panic and chaos at Columbine. Orozco said that within just 22 minutes, 13 students and a teacher had been killed at Columbine, and 27 others wounded.

Rachel Scott courageously fought prejudice in her school. News clips showcased students testifying to her many acts of kindness. A girl who at the time of the tragedy was fairly new to the school recalled dreading lunch on her first day. No one had spoken to her all day, and she feared eating alone, she said in the interview. At lunchtime, Rachel asked her if she’d like to join her group of friends for lunch. Feeling uncomfortable, the girl said “no thank you.”

Sensing how vulnerable the new student was, Rachel and her friends picked up their lunches and joined the girl at her own lunch table, an act of compassion that went far beyond what the girl could have hoped for in a friend, let alone a new acquaintance.

Another student, an African American boy who admitted to being “angry at the world,” wrote a letter about how Rachel had saved his life. As one of the few black students in a nearly all-white school, he said he had become a bully. Rachel talked to him every day, apparently chipping away at his defensive behavior.

“The way she looked at me changed the way I looked at myself,” the student wrote.

Adam Kyler, a Columbine student who suffered from a disease that affected his physical appearance, said he was on the verge of suicide until Rachel came to his defense. “If I was important enough for her, I knew there would be others,” Kyler said.

Orozco outlined Rachel’s challenges. Rachel’s first goal was to “eliminate prejudice” by “looking for the best in others.” She also challenged people to “dare to dream.” Keeping a journal, she wrote, helps the writer clarify and meet their goals.

“Choose your influences,” Rachel wrote. The challenge was described as “input determines output.”

Central to Rachel’s challenges is the need to be kind. She said in her journals that “small acts of kindness equal huge impact.”

Finally, Rachel believed in the power of creating a chain reaction of kindness. To that end, people who step up to Rachel’s challenges are encouraged to write handwritten notes to three close family members or friends, telling them how important they are.

One parent at the assembly wasn’t happy with the graphic nature of the films, or the prophetic references Rachel had made before her death.

The news footage, one man said, might make murder attractive to some kids.

But the majority of the parents at the nighttime assembly disagreed. Parent after parent spoke about how the assembly had positively affected their child.

Chris Regan, assistant principal of Agoura High School, assured parents that counselors were on hand to talk to students who might have been disturbed by the graphic details presented in the program.

“I don’t think sugarcoating or taking out the reality of it will help students,” said Josh Tobias, an eighth-grade student at Lindero Canyon Middle School who attended both the student and parent sessions. Shayne Krasovich, another Lindero student, said many of his friends had cried after the presentation.

A mother recounted how her son, a junior in high school, had talked with her about how many kids at school are bullied because of their differences.

“He got the message to reach out,” she said.

For further information, visit www.rachelschallenge.com.

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