For Willow Shannon, ’24, the community of WHHS’ club SafeBAE has always been a welcoming, supportive community. After becoming the club’s president last school year, Shannon was determined to expand the safe space of SafeBAE to an even larger audience.
SafeBAE is a student-led, national organization aiming to prevent sexual harassment and violence in middle and high schools. WHHS’ chapter, led by Shannon, provides both education and outreach to the school community to raise awareness about such issues.
“We definitely know [instances of sexual assault] happen here… but have gone unreported because of past instances where nothing has really happened,” Shannon said. “We wanted to create more of a safe space, which is why we took on [our primary] project last year.”
Each year, SafeBAE selects a specific campaign or event to highlight as its primary focus. Last year, Shannon led an outreach project of an even greater scale: revising the CPS district’s Title IX Sex Discrimination and Sexual Harassment Policy.
“We thought that if we started with reforming that policy and made it more student-friendly and survivor-friendly, more people would be likely to report and more change would be likely to happen,” Shannon said.
To make the policy more accessible, Shannon and SafeBAE members communicated with CPS board members to establish information they thought was critical to incorporate into the policy. Now, the revised policy consists of an extended purpose statement, definitions of applicable terminology under state law and an explanation of the privacy policy, support interventions and reporting process for survivors.
“I feel like if you don’t use it or if you don’t feel comfortable using it, just knowing that you have that power… knowing that you could have your voice heard instead of being forced into silence is a big difference for [survivors’] mentality,” Shannon said.
However, publicity of the policy remains a concern for Shannon, who feels that students and staff have remained largely unaware of the changes made.
“I am satisfied with the policy, but I wouldn’t say that I’m satisfied with how [CPS] has publicized it…” Shannon said. “This has been published since the end of March… and [people] are just now hearing about it.”
As SafeBAE begins work on its next campaign, Shannon hopes to continue drawing greater attention to the policy and cultivating an informed, supportive community at WHHS for survivors.
“Knowing that your voice [can be] heard if you want to report it and that it will be supported and taken seriously – that’s really important,” Shannon said.
