Baldwin High School Students Hold Hallway Rally To Discuss Sexual Assault
BALDWIN, Pa. (KDKA) - Conversations over sex education are heating up at Baldwin High School. Students held a hallway rally on Monday to discuss the topic of sexual assault and changes they feel need to be made to the curriculum.
"It was people I'd never even met, people I'd never even seen. The amount of support I felt at Baldwin that day really made me change the way I view things," said Baldwin sophomore Isabella Titov.
Titov organized this event. The topic sparked from an alleged sexual assault between two students off campus in 2019. Social media posts over the weekend brought the incident back into the spotlight. Now students are speaking out with a message.
"They wanted to feel heard and it was so inspiring to see all these people finally feel heard and they had a chance to say something," Titov said.
School leaders told KDKA the campaign doesn't stop in the high school hall.
"We had the opportunity to listen. Now we spent today connecting children with the resources available whether it be counselors, social workers. We contract with AHN and have a chill project," said Superintendent Randal Lutz.
Lutz told KDKA he wants students to feel safe and comfortable to talk about a situation even if it did not happen at the school.
While the resources are already there, the conversation is now turning to education.
"We are looking at and continue to look at revising health, physical education curriculum. The health topics, consent, all of those things need to be part of the conversation and they always have been but I think yesterday and the follow up today allowed us to refocus on some of those efforts," Lutz said.
The allegations that started this conversation did bring up some concerns from the public on how the reporting was handled by the school district. The school board is conducting a third party review on the matter to make sure the proper rules were followed.
As for any report of assault to a staff member, it ultimately is reported to local law enforcement.