Monday’s Temple Student Government General Assembly meeting was filled with thanks, a discussion about the local school district and a look forward to next week.
Vice President Ofo Ezeugwu and Vice President Julian Hamer opened the meeting by showing their appreciation to the attendees that helped with the first-ever TSG week. Hamer also announced that nearly 200 students registered to vote in the 2012 election during TSG events.
The featured speaker was business and management major Ariel Johnson-Peredo, who discussed Teach forAmerica and its impact on low-income communities.
According to the statistics in Johnson-Peredo’s presentation, in the School District of Philadelphia, 61 percent of students graduate from high school in four years and of those graduates 10 percent go on to graduate from college.
Johnson-Peredo, who grew up in Philadelphia and attended Julia R. Masterman School on Spring Garden Street, believes that our schools are failing the students and that all children deserve a good education and that is why Teach for America is important.
“I personally think the impossible is possible,” Johnson-Peredo said.
Next week, TSG will begin to conduct legislative business and distribute the new student discount cards as a part of homecoming week.
Laura Detter can be reached at laura.detter@temple.edu.
As a TFA alum and now rep at Temple, I’m so excited to be Temple’s student leaders addressing such a critical issue in our country. If you are a Temple student leader from ANY academic background and interested in learning more about the opportunity to join the movement to end educational inequity in our country please visit http://www.teachforamerica.org or email me at michelle.ritchie@teachforamerica.org. I look forward to seeing more Temple Owls stepping into classrooms next year and changing the game for kids growing up in poverty!