Westside’s Community Forum Turns Tense

A slide from the slideshow presented on Monday.

A slide from the slideshow presented on Monday.

A forum is “a public meeting place for open discussion” according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary. This wasn’t exactly what January 25th’s forum community was. It was filled with more unanswered questions, interruptions, and hands left in the air in the end. This forum was the moment when the rumors came true about Westside’s uniform. 2016 and 2017 will now become the years known as the years of the uniform.

Before the meeting took place the audience found out that Westside, a school without uniforms, was a gold school that was considered higher than two other non-uniform schools; Stratford and Bellaire. The forum wasn’t only about the uniforms but this topic did take up 50% of the meeting and the only topic which questions were asked about. The first 3 topics were still important. The audience learned about what power up was and how to apply for AP tests and how HISD is offering mock tests and study days for the upcoming tests. The third topic could be considered the transition to the controversial topic of uniforms. It was describing the capacity of Westside and the amount of people working to protect the school.

When the final topic arrived the audience was on edge and a little confused. The first thing the audience was informed about was that uniforms weren’t a topic to be debated unless it is about what they would look like. After this statement Mrs. Stewart was bombarded with questions and facts that contradicted some of the slides that were shown during the meeting. Questions ranged from “how will you provide to the 54.2% of the school that is economically disadvantaged” to “why did parents have no say” a lot of these were left unanswered. 30 minute before the meeting was supposed to end Mrs. Stewart ended the meeting while hands where still in the air.