Staff and students celebrated Unity Day on Oct. 24 by wearing orange to take a stand against bullying. The day is meant to promote kindness, acceptance, and inclusion, helping to spread awareness and positivity on campus.
As a reward for wearing orange during Unity Day, students could earn 50 spirit points if they checked in on 5Star, according to the email that was sent out on Student Square.
Principal and Chief Innovator of MHS and New Campus Programs Greg Wohlman believes that bullying can make people feel unwanted and uncomfortable and that they don’t belong, Wohlman said.
“We started our fight-free campus in June two years ago,” Wohlman said. “As of today, we have a 93 percent reduction in fighting on the campus.”
Promoting kindness starts with communication and understanding, Wohlman said. Unity Day serves as a reminder to celebrate the good things happening at MHS and continue building a positive environment, he added.
“We can disagree, but it doesn’t mean we need to be unkind to each other,” Wohlman said
MHS is at a pretty good stage where everyone shows acceptance, kindness, and inclusion to one another, Wohlman said. However, there is always room for improvement, he said.
“I’m super proud of Milpitas’ students going from something that a large majority of students said that it wasn’t possible to have a fight-free campus to where there is a 93% improvement,” Wohlman said.
Freshman Navya Bollu believes bullying is bad because it makes people feel small inside and put down, she said. Although she has never had any personal experiences with bullying, she thinks that reading and watching books and movies is enough to understand how harmful bullying is, she said.
“When it comes to bullying and showing acceptance, kindness, and inclusion, students should just be kind to each other and try not to disrespect each other as human beings because you never really know what people are going through,” Bollu said.
Bollu’s parents encourage her to participate in spirit days, and she believes joining events like Unity Day helps build a stronger school community, Bollu said. She also shared that even if not everyone participates, it’s still important to take part and show support, she added.
“I think what Unity Day means to me is when the school community comes together to try and address bullying and stop it and stand together,” Bollu said.
