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On Friday of last week, IJ Holton Intermediate School held its first-ever Culture Day under the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports program umbrella, and by all accounts it was a great success.

In two sessions during the day, students at the school revolved through presentations by the Austin Public Schools District’s success coaches, who opened a looking glass into their cultural backgrounds.

“This is a great way for our students to see who these people are at our school that are seen during conferences and things like that,” said Colin Zidlicky, IJ band teacher as well as the lead for the schools Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program. “If you actually look into the school, over 60% are non-white students. There are a ton of cultures that are unique to Austin that kids don’t really know about.”

Austin’s schools, whether it be APS or Pacelli Catholic Schools, have been centralized structures for Austin’s vast array of diversity, melding the different cultures that make up the Austin community.

Through this melding, it helps further cement the unity of the community as more come to call Austin home.

This Culture Day is just another tool in the toolbox to help achieve that. By reaching younger students, we are able to further cement the importance of this kind of unity by opening up the understanding of where people come from and their heritages.

The more we understand the more we can work together and in this vein we hope that the children can lead the way into a future that is filled with acceptance and pride for where we all come from.

This opportunity means just as much for the success coaches themselves who stand with pride regarding where they come from.

While these students mingle with those of different backgrounds on a daily basis, it remains important that we take advantage of these opportunities when they arrive and continue to invite these kinds of ideas to further heighten the acceptance of the community, because in a lot of ways it will be the community that defines us.