As students are preparing their schedules for next year, one student-led program encourages peers to sign up for advanced courses.
Black Scholars Alliance (BSA) is a group at Westerville North dedicated to encouraging students of different races to take more advanced classes. They provide information and personal experiences on Advanced Placement (AP), College Credit Plus (CCP), and other advanced/honors courses.
BSA started last school year (2023-2024) with Madison Adkins-Smith (Alumni) as the founding president, along with Johnny Jackson, the Track and Field coach, as the current advisor. Currently, Luayyah Suleiman (‘25) is the president of BSA and is aided by Mariah Chaffin (‘25) who is a leading member of the program.
According to Jackson, Chaffin and Suleiman, the idea for BSA started when a meeting at Black Student Union (BSU) focused on how it felt to be one of the only students of color in an advanced class. “The same reason [BSA] was formed. I went through it as a student, so I definitely understand,” Jackson said. “But I’m very happy that students are taking ownership of [BSA] and coming together and wanting to do it because this was a student’s idea, so I think that makes it great.”
Over the past two years, BSA has done events such as an annual ‘Trunk-or-Treat’ fundraising event with a canned food drive at the Westerville North parking lot for children in the community, attending school fairs and curriculum nights and creating two videos that were presented in advisories that gave information on AP, CCP, and other advanced/honors courses.
Even with the short time BSA has been active, its members can boast of the achievements of the program. “I’m most proud of our progress,” Chaffin said. “We really have grown as a club and have done some things that we’ve never done before like the Trunk-or-Treat this year… something that was pretty ambitious for us to just do after only the second year in the club.” BSA has 20-30 members who encourage the student body to challenge themselves with advanced courses.
“[I’m proud] that a group of us of all different backgrounds can get together and talk about real issues and ways to bring more diversity into higher education,” Desmond Okantey (‘26), a BSA member, said.
Okantey shares his experience of choosing courses for high school. “Coming in as a freshman, I guess the younger you are, you only have as much freedom because you have to take certain classes to graduate,” Okantey said. “But I feel like I didn’t really know a lot about the pathway of high school classes.” BSA is reaching out to ensure that students are aware of advanced courses, but to members or advisors such as Jackson, the work doesn’t stop at the high school level.
“I would like to go districtwide,” Jackson said, “to all three high schools, and that we are openly allowed to recruit at the elementary and middle school level and then we get more people of color in those classes so they are represented a lot more.”
According to Suleiman, BSA plans to focus on educating middle schools about signing up for advanced courses this second semester. “I think there is still a lot of work that has to be done into getting more students involved,” Suleiman said.
Even as BSA is focusing on branching out, according to Suleiman, there is still work to do at North.
“I’m pretty sure people of color make up the majority of students at North right now, but students of color don’t make up the majority of students in advanced classes,” Suleiman said. “We are making steps towards the right direction, but we can’t stop now.”
Many members share this mentality of pushing BSA forward and encouraging others to take advanced courses. “[I want] black people/minorities to feel like they can do anything, [that] there is no limit on their academic potential,” Okantey said, “I want to remind people that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.”
