Ten Hewlett High School students stepped outside their classrooms and into a broader conversation about race, leadership and equity last week, joining peers from across Long Island at Hofstra University for ERASE Racism’s 2026 Long Island Leaders of Tomorrow Conference.
The daylong event on March 18, hosted by the Long Island–based civil rights organization, brought together students in grades nine through 12 from Nassau and Suffolk counties for interactive workshops and discussions centered on leadership development and social change.
For the Hewlett students, the experience offered an opportunity to engage directly with others their age from different communities and backgrounds — something organizers say is critical on Long Island, one of the most segregated regions of the country.
“Long Island is the 10th most segregated metro region even according to the 2020 Census,” Nicole Grennan, program associate for ERASE Racism, said. “We have this long history of structural racism even in the form of racial covenants and red-lining that was happening in the region. As a result, our schools are very segregated.”
Students from more than a dozen districts — including Baldwin, Bellmore-Merrick, Glen Cove, Hewlett-Woodmere, Long Beach, Malverne and Valley Stream — took part in the conference, working in small groups and larger sessions to explore issues of race, equity and opportunity. Participants examined how inequities persist in areas such as education and housing.
Jayden Hunter, an HHS freshman, represented Sources of Strength, a suicide-prevention club at the school. “I expected to be doing a lot of team-building activities and learning about how to fix problems at our school,” Hunter said. “Instead I learned about how deeply rooted the problems are, so it’s normalized to us. Also, how much work we have to do to stop segregation and racism.”
One of his goals now, Hunter added, is to share that he learned about how secretly segregated his school district is and the message that all of Long Island needs to be more unified.
“I want to start more clubs for minorities,” he said. “We can do so much more, including Hispanic Heritage Club, African American Culture Club or AP African American History. We can definitely have more classes on this, too.”
The program emphasized collaboration, encouraging students to share personal experiences and perspectives while building strategies to foster more inclusive school environments.
For some, the gathering served as both an eye-opening and a motivating experience. “I learned so much about the history of all the racism that happened on Long Island,” Mishkat Hashmi, a freshman and a member of Sources of Strength, said, “including all the segregation, and everything that was built to keep black people away from white people. I think it’s so heartbreaking because it’s still there.”
Attending the conference gave junior Kayla Simon the opportunity to meet people with different backgrounds and opinions and to understand why they think the way they do.
“I didn’t expect that I would have such drastically different views about racism from people,” Simon said. “I learned that racism is a social construct, and that it’s not really real and it’s made up in our heads.”
Simon planned to reach out to Hewlett High Principal Al Bauer to ask about creating educational assemblies on racism and starting a Black Student Union. “Maybe this will push them to have it in our school,” she added.
Educators who accompanied the students described the experience as an important extension of what they learn in the classroom. “We want all of our students to be civically engaged and to be successful after high school,” Nick Damiani, a school counselor, said. “The chance to be able to bring them here and watch them collaborate with other districts is really rewarding.”
By the end of the day, the Hewlett students — and their peers — left with new perspectives and practical tools for fostering dialogue and understanding in their schools and communities.
“Our students don’t get the chance to mingle with other districts,” Damiani said, “so the fact that we’re being really intentional with them, meeting other folks united around this idea, is really rewarding for them.”
