CG students (and a teacher) sing, rap at first Community Hall

By Henry Chisholm
Development Associate

School town hall’s were productive, but according to Common Ground junior Leesandra Mendoza, they were missing something.

“At the town hall’s a lot of people would be bored and we would just sit there and kids would fall asleep,” she said.

Everyone stayed awake this time around. The student body packed the multipurpose room of the Springside Center for poetry, rap, singing and even some dancing at the first Community Hall.

The old town hall meetings consisted of students discussing issues they had at Common Ground. They would go through student council and try to correct whatever issues students brought up. Senior Ihsan Abdussabur said Community Hall is a new way of bringing the school together.

“We have an opportunity to talk about a lot things all together, so why not make them good things instead of talking about problems,” Abdussabur said. “I was like, let’s have something called Community Hall since we’re all community.”

Students like Mendoza and Elijah Vann recited their own poems as students listened, smiled and cheered their fellow CG classmates on. Emma Perry’s soothing voice captivated the crowd as she sang and Social Studies teacher Brian Springsteen brought up his students to join him as he dropped bars, rapping his song “Nostalgia.” Students bopped their heads and danced in their seats to Springsteen’s boom-bap tune.

Nobody fell asleep this time.

Leesandra Mendoza performing her poem, “Rise Up.”

“People really got engaged and thinking what it means to be a community and talking to one another and having the space where it’s open and you can hear student voices more than normal,” Mendoza said.

This won’t be the last Community Hall. The event, which is a hybrid of a pep rally and town hall, will take place once a month according to Abdussabur.

“Let’s have a town hall feel, but we can have performances from people, we can make announcements about positive things and we can all be together.” Abdussabur said.

Teacher Brian Springsteen and Co. taking it back with their song, “Nostalgia.”