Thursday, October 1, 2026
Some of the brightest minds and most articulate voices in the Roosevelt school district community were featured at Roosevelt High School’s first-ever TEDx event last week, offering their knowledge, insight and perspective to a small crowd in the school auditorium.
TEDx events are associated with the nonprofit media organization Technology, Entertainment, Design, or TED, known for its series of informative and inspirational talks by experts in a wide range of fields. The TEDx program helps communities produce TED-style events at the local level.
The remarks of the six featured speakers at Roosevelt High on April 30 shared the theme “Transforming the Narrative: How Impactful Moments Shape Communities” — inspired by a motto used throughout the Roosevelt school district this year: “Together We Transform.”
“Tonight is an embodiment of transformation,” the high school’s principal, Keith Saunders Sr., told the attendees. “We have six speakers who have been preparing for this evening, to show the transformation of this community, and of this building.”
The on-stage participants included two current Roosevelt students, a former Roosevelt High student and three educators or administrators.
One of them was business teacher Damascus Lee, who was diagnosed with cancer in late 2024. Once headed for a career on Wall Street, Lee instead found his passion in teaching and coaching football. He started teaching at the high school last year, after beginning the treatment process, and soon found his calling.
“When I started teaching, that’s when everything changed,” Lee said. “I immediately started to have the time of my absolute life getting to the building, laughing and joking with my kids. I started to feel interactions, and I started to love what I was doing.”
Other speakers included more familiar faces in the district, like Barbara Solomon, who worked there for 36 years, including 15 years as principal of Centennial Avenue Elementary. Solomon spoke of the necessity for kindness, especially in schools.
“Kindness must come from a place of compassion and empathy to foster a school climate of belonging,” she said. “Kindness must come from a place of peace to build trust, and reduce conflict to create a school culture. The richest gift that you can give someone is the gift of kindness.”
Jasmin Ferman, a member of Roosevelt High’s class of 2025, spoke of her own transformation as she became the first in her family to attend college.
“Being a first-generation student allowed me to have struggles, but it would also allow for beauty in the process of what it meant to redefine myself, and redefine what being a first-generation student is,” Ferman said. “There is a beauty to being a first-generation student — it isn’t as much a label, but instead something to be proud of.”
The speakers also included current Roosevelt High students Carla Cruz, a senior, and Stacey Borgelin, a junior, each of whom told deeply personal stories about their own identities and finding their true selves. And district social worker Timara Manns discussed the importance of mental health, especially in a school community.
“Maybe the lesson isn’t that we need to teach students how to be strong,” Manns said. “Maybe it’s that we need to be learning from them, because they’re already showing us what strength really looks like. We just have to be willing to see it.”
The event organizers, Roosevelt High teachers Samantha VonGerichten, of Roosevelt, and Erica Phillips, of Freeport, said they hoped the event would serve as a starting point for an annual tradition at the school.
“We’re hoping for many of these in the future, to help spark conversations,” VonGerichten said. “Our community has so much potential, and so many diverse aspects, and we have to get the conversation flowing.”
