On Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, DMAE students and faculty attended a virtual assembly on bullying run by the No Place for Hate Tour. The assembly was both asynchronous and real-time.

“Our goal is to establish a warm, engaging and inviting learning environment for every member of our DMAE Community,” Principal Ben Suro said. “We found that the virtual bullying assembly was a huge success. That was our first whole school virtual event,” he added.

Many students enjoyed the assembly because it featured videos by a variety of celebrities who shared words of advice with the audience. David Dobrik, Ally Brooke, Richard Sherman, and Bethany Hamilton were among the list of star-studded speakers.

“My favorite speaker was Ally Brooke from Fifth Harmony because she was interesting to listen to and I liked how she shared her personal experience,” sophomore Grace Hermkens commented.

Ms. Brooke, a pop singer famous for her single “Perfect,” told students to support each other: “It is so important to uplift one another,” she said in her segment of the assembly explaining how this was especially true during the pandemic.

DJ, record producer and dance artist Steve Aoki told students, “choose love over hate” and “differences make us special, they make us stand out” and he encouraged students to “become an ally.”

With approximately a dozen stars giving their stories about perseverance mixed in with the X-Game host’s slides on statistics, and advice to become aware of the time you spend on social media, the “Bullying Assembly” was both engaging and informative. 

“I hope that students have learned that treating someone unfairly unlike the way that they would like to be treated is not right in any way, nor will it be tolerated by the community,” Mr. Suro commented. “Everyone’s uniqueness should be celebrated and acknowledged,” he added.

DMAE students can look forward to more virtual schoolwide events in the near future.