The Multicultural Center is a small, glass room on the top floor of Grant High School. Since its inception, the room’s uses have continually changed to meet the needs of the students.
The center was established in 2020, when Principal James McGee hired a former student of his, then in college, to run it. “When I got to Grant, what I hoped for was to have a dedicated space for students of color, and a place that they could sort of call their own,” says McGee. The Multicultural Center was that space.
The center’s facilitator “had a library, and there were books he’d hand-picked out, (and) a place for kids where they could … study,” says Justin Tonkins, Grant’s student attendance coach. The room was also intended to be a space for student organizations like the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) — the Chica-
no Student Movement of Aztlán — and the Black Student Union (BSU) to hold affinity group meetings and other gatherings.
Unfortunately, the plan never came to fruition, due to all academics being moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic starting in the spring of 2020. “(The center’s facilitator) worked here that (first) year, but there was really never any connection with students because students weren’t in the building,” says McGee. When Tonkins was hired in the 2020–2021 school year, the original facilitator of the Multicultural Center had left his position at Grant and begun graduate school. In order to keep it functioning, the space became Tonkins’ office.
This move worked well with Tonkins’ role at Grant. “It was like, this was my office, but it’s still the Multicultural Center, just because it kind of aligns with what I do here,” says Tonkins. “I mean, I work with all sorts of students, all walks of life. It’s my job to get all 2,200 kids in class consistently and staying engaged. So it just seemed like the right area at the time for me to work out of.”
Students appreciated this move. Brooklyn West, a junior at Grant, says, “We always felt like that was a safe space, especially when (Tonkins) was in there. Just because he supports us all, like all the students, not just the ones of color.”
It went through the Grant Parent Teacher Association as well, as shown from their minute notes in December 2020: “Mr. McGee is working on creating a Multicultural Center — two areas that include a place to hang out and a dedicated meeting space. They have hired an individual to run it and he is creating a library in it.”
While Tonkins’ office was in the Multicultural Center, it was a quiet space where students could do their work. There was a library and posters, as well as desks and chairs for students to hang out in. “(Tonkins) would make sure we were staying on task,” says West. “It was always a safe space to get my work done. Actually, I think I got the most work done when I was in his room.”
Now, the Multicultural Center is being used as Grant English teacher Jon Carr’s classroom. Carr, who teaches sophomore English and senior African-American Literature, has been teaching for two decades. Last year, his classroom was a normal one.
The space has been completely converted into a classroom and, to Carr’s knowledge, is not being used for any of its previous affinity-space purposes. Carr says of his new classroom, “It’s small … It’s got strange acoustics. No security, in terms of lock-downs. It’s clearly not set up to be a classroom.”
While unfortunate, the move was a necessity. The Multicultural Center had been slowing down in recent years. Two years after Tonkins was hired, he was moved down to the main office to be closer to the rest of
the Grant administration.
This move frustrated students. “You have to walk through the office (to reach Tonkin’s office),” says West. “And we constantly feel like we’re in trouble, just so we can go talk to a teacher.”
With Tonkins’ office gone — before it became Carr’s classroom — the Multicultural Center was left without any official use. With no one to run it, it became a space for occasional conferences and affinity group lunches.
Space has always been a problem at Grant — the student population of over 2,200 is about 500 students over the building’s official capacity of 1,750 — and the extra classroom was needed for the 2023–2024 school year’s incoming freshmen. “Up until, literally, to the day before (students) showed up, we were still trying to find spaces for teachers,” says McGee.
For now, the Multicultural Center will continue to be used as a classroom, but its future is uncertain. Will a drop in Grant’s enrollment ever come, allowing projects like the Multicultural Center to come into the light?
