Being a teenager — let’s face it — it can be uncomfortable.

Awkward.

But when it comes to succeeding in school, feeling comfortable and like you belong can be as important as having a great teacher.

Researchers say a sense of belonging can increase things like attendance and potentially, graduation rates. According to the Centers for Disease Control, when students feel connected to school, they are less likely to experience poor mental health. Relationships — with adults, with peers — can be key to that connection. According to the 2022 Oregon Student Health Survey, about 76% of 11th-grade students say there is at least one adult at school that cares about them. It was slightly lower for Black students (73%) and Latino students (71%).

David Douglas High School in Southeast Portland has a large, highly diverse student body with approaches both inside and outside the classroom intended to help students feel like they belong: Student affinity groups offer support during the school day, while culturally relevant English classes provide an opportunity for all students to explore their identity in a class setting students say is engaging.

Latinx Student Union celebrates culture, creates community

It’s lunchtime. Across from the loud, busy cafeteria, junior Destiny is in a different room, wrapped in a blanket looking at her phone.

“The room, it’s really comfortable,” she says. “There’s a couch, there’s blankets that you can take into the classroom too.”

This is the new home of the David Douglas Latinx Student Union. It’s a spot where students can connect with each other, the group’s advisor or with nonprofits like Latino Network. Destiny is one of several students who go to the LSU every day for lunch.

The fluorescent overhead lights are off, replaced by lamps. In another corner of the classroom, a group of students laughs and eats lunch together. The five students include a senior, three sophomores, and a freshman named Beverly.

“I was kind of alone, so I kind of came here… I was bored and I don’t know, I just didn’t want to be alone,” Beverly said.

From there, Beverly met LSU advisor Aline Alvarez and other staff dedicated to helping Latinx students.

“Being here makes me feel better because I’m here with people I’m talking to and it just makes me feel better - I guess I kind of have friends,” Beverly said.

Alvarez graduated from David Douglas in 2017. She wants the school’s Latinx students, who make up nearly a third of the student body, to feel empowered and know there’s a place they can find support.

Alejandro, a David Douglas senior, said being a part of LSU all four years of high school helped him make community connections and understand his culture. It helped him academically, too.

“It got me on track,” he said, standing next to Alvarez, who he’s known since freshman year. “It kept me on track. And they always motivated me to continue to do better and go to class and get my grades together and my GPA higher and everything.”

That affinity groups can have a positive academic impact is notable, given Oregon’s longstanding gaps between the performance of Hispanic/Latino students and students as a whole, based on metrics such as test scores and graduation rates.

Both the LSU and the school’s Black Student Union changed locations this year, from a secondary building often locked to students to classrooms in a main hallway.

The LSU is taking advantage of the new space, hosting a mercado where LSU students promoted and sold items to the whole David Douglas community.

The room’s whiteboard is full of Instagram handles for florists, jewelers, and bakers – all student businesses.

“It’s been very student-led,” Alvarez said.

The LSU that Alvarez knew as a student was not like this.

Still, she said having a space isn’t enough. She wants to see more school staff stop into the LSU and attend events like the mercado.

“A presence of a teacher - that counts, students notice that,” she said. “I feel like we can create these environments but it’s also about showing up, 100%. You can tell a student, ‘oh just go here!’ But … are you going there? Are you showing up?”

Black Student Union provides a place to have tough conversations

Next door to the LSU, Black Student Union advisor Ghermanie Allen jokes around with a few students sitting at a big round table. There’s a table of snacks at the front of the room. Along the windows are photos of influential people who are Black – from Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to recently retired David Douglas principal Greg Carradine.

At David Douglas, 12% of students are Black and about 70% are students of color, according to state data. The teaching ranks, much like the state as a whole, are more than 80% white, though classified staff are slightly more racially diverse.

With such a diverse student body and an overwhelmingly white staff, Allen said it can be hard for students and staff to build relationships.

“Having BSU and knowing that this is a safe space, that you can come here and you can feel that sense of belonging that you may not feel in another classroom or when you walk in the halls is very important,” she said.

Senior Darajah was born in Oakland, California and had attended predominantly Black schools in the past.

“It was kind of odd to come here and have it be kind of the opposite,” she said. “But BSU kind of gives me that sense of community that I feel like I lost in the transition from there to here.”

Melissa, another senior and student body president at David Douglas High, said being a part of BSU has helped her build leadership skills.

“Each time [I’ve been on the board], I’ve grown out of my timid shell,” which she said has made it easier to have hard conversations.

Earlier this school year, the David Douglas football team said they were subjected to racist taunts at away games. Melissa said the incident reverberated schoolwide, and the BSU provided a space to talk through it in a comfortable space.

“Even though we didn’t experience that, our community did, so it took a toll on all of us,” she recalled. “We were able to talk about that situation and …we got to watch documentaries and movies about football.”

Allen, the BSU advisor, is a Black woman. That matters, Melissa says.

“She’s honestly like an older sister because she’s able to communicate to us about anything,” Melissa said.

In the classroom, taking an identity-centered approach to English

A few years ago, it was the BSU that proposed a new class: Black Studies.

The yearlong, senior-level English class covers everything from the arts and the education system to Oregon’s Black history.

“All of our music artists of the week are Black,” said teacher Chris Mathews. “Almost everything we read or consume is by a Black journalist, Black author, about a Black person, and I think that’s very intentional.”

Mathews co-teaches the class with Abdiel Morales, curriculum director for REAP, a local organization that works with low-income students and students of color across the state.

Morales designed the class to be more discussion-based, with student participation often replacing tests as an assessment tool. Writing assignments call for personal reflections in addition to analysis on books like Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.”

“When it’s at its best, it is the students talking a lot more than the teacher,” Mathews said.

Ali, a senior in OPB’s Class of 2025, said she likes hearing her classmates’ perspectives in the class.

“With Black Studies, I feel like it’s more passionate,” she said. “You get to learn more about stuff you actually want to and it’s actually interesting.”

Ali took another English offering, Latinx Studies, last year. In that class, she said she connected with her teacher, who was Latinx, as well as classmates who grew up in similar households to her.

Ali’s classmate Kofi took Latinx Studies with her last year, and sits next to her in Black Studies.

“Both Latinx Studies and Black Studies have definitely been like an identity gateway for me to find out who I am,” Kofi said.

“I feel some very, very intense buy-in from everybody that’s there,” Morales said. “It makes you really happy as a teacher. You’re like, ‘OK, cool, there’s something good happening here.’”

Neither of the class instructors is Black.

Mathews is white.

“After that first day I don’t dwell on it,” he said. “I am not an expert in Black history, Black culture, Black literature …but my job is, I’m an expert at creating classroom culture and facilitating conversations and helping kids analyze literature, and so I try to lean into that.”

Morales grew up in Puerto Rico and identifies as a person of color.

Several schools across Oregon contract with outside organizations like REAP to support students from different cultural backgrounds.

This class takes that relationship a step further, with the community partner guiding classroom instruction.

Morales said he’d like to see this replicated in other Oregon schools.

Mathews agrees, but wants to see schools take on more responsibility rather than rely entirely on community partners.

“They [Schools] need to hire teachers of color and they need to create these kinds of classes without having to farm that out to our partner agencies,” Mathews said.

Like many districts, David Douglas is working on diversifying its school staff. And Mathews said current staff do make an effort to understand and value the cultural backgrounds of their students.

“The key is that our students feel that support in every class,” Mathews said. Still, he said these values could “be better woven into the fabric” of David Douglas.

Morales said that support is necessary for students to grasp what they’re learning. But it takes time, intention, and people to build those connections. He said Black Studies shows that community partners can help teach traditional subjects in an effective, but untraditional way.

“This demonstrates a shift in education that there’s a lot of pushback for, but it’s an absolutely necessary shift,” Morales said.