ABOUT

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it" -- so said Atticus Finch, the inspiration behind the Portola High School Empathy Project.

We started off as a six member team in Ms. Rapp's ninth grade English class, known as the "Instatutors." Other groups in our class focused on helping the mentally-impaired, the young girls in low-income communities, or those affected by anxiety and depression. Our team took a slightly different approach: we decided to focus on our peers. After all, why attempt to spread ourselves thin and barely make a difference in distant communities when there was a community that needed help right here?

There is no doubt that Irvine students as a whole are privileged. We are blessed with state of the art facilities in our schools. We have excellent teachers, peer-tutoring services, and we have access to countless outside academies and tutoring classes if we are struggling or if we are overachieving and want that little extra boost.

Therein lies the problem.

What happens to the students who cannot attend the peer-tutoring sessions because the times conflict with their sports team’s practice? What happens to the students who cannot afford or do not have the time to take all the additional enrichment classes that their peers take?

We are privileged, yes, but that makes our competition harder. That’s what makes receiving a B so devastating -- everyone else is getting an A.

The students who can’t keep up are left discouraged and lose their motivation.

Classline is a student-run organization with the mission to give high school students a community where they can receive help with their school work, advice and ideas, and a reminder that they are not alone.  We want to be able to reach all students, including those who struggle to keep up and those who want an extra boost.

Our hope is that Classline can change the attitudes of students and improve the culture in IUSD schools by making students more open-minded, more community-oriented, and less stressed.

Classline is possible because of students who volunteer their time for free. We could not do this without them. We would like to thank all of those students and all of our supporters for helping us grow and expand our project.

Best,

Kate Hayashi, President

Jordan Amlen, Vice President