Student Training in Advocacy, Rights, and Responsibilities (STARR)
a student-led organization within the Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies
The STARR acronym honors the legendary law-related and civic educator and lawyer Isidore Starr—read about him here https://www.
Mission:
STARR is a student-led group working with an adult advisory board to develop student training programs related to constitutional guarantees, civil rights, and responsibilities. Our first program will be a Fall 2022 student-led peer training with a focus on student First Amendment rights and responsibilities and LGBTQ+ civil rights. Its initial geographic spotlight will be Bucks County, although the model will be ready to replicate through the state and beyond. You can support this program by donating here.
STARR’s Purpose:
Students empowering, informing, and engaging peers in constitutional, civil rights, and social justice issues.
STARR’s Core Values
Students being knowledgeable citizens now - exercising their rights and recognizing the limits to those freedoms.
Students advocating peaceably and powerfully, fully tapping digital and onsite advocacy opportunities.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging are central threads of American history, powerfully fabricating all into a tapestry of a connected nation.
Our Origin
A Pennsylvania school district began what many of their students believe was an attack on LGBTQ+ students and allies who supported them. Students led the fight while adult allies and non-profit organizations supported them. A student from this school formed a group to create STARR, a student-led organization within the Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies, in an effort to ensure that students develop a solid constitutional foundation to serve as the supportive intellectual framework for their advocacy and evolving citizen leadership.
Our Student Leaders
President: Zandi Hall
Vice President: Shariat Sultan
Secretary:
Treasurer:
Historian: Logan George Abt
Trustees: Kyra Farkas, Lillian Russo, Liam David, Fiza Kamran, Zhilen Liang, Anna Block.
Our Adult Advisory Board
Honorary Chairperson: Mary Beth Tinker
Advisory Board Members: Dr. David M. Hall; Dr. Rose Cherie Reissman; David Trevaskis, Esq., Dr. Kris Brown, Brian Foster, Kathy Smith, Esq., David Cordts, Susan Etter, Esq., Mary Hall, Dennis Henderson, Jordan Morgan, Esq., Evangeline Sell