Should we have a student member of the school board?

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Permalink Reply by Carolyn Avaire on May 23, 2007 at 3:03pm

This is a copy of a post I placed on the Minneapolis Parent's Forum one year ago. Post #1871 I believe I found a lot of info on the EducationEvolving site. Lots of good stuff there.
The Sound Out link has some info on student members of the school board.

For families, students, teachers frustrated and desperate....voices.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/19_04/yout194.shtml
http://www.homeproject.org/about%20BASE.htm
http://soundout.org/Guide.106.html

Thanks to Adam at the National Youth Rights Association a youth in favor of
saving public
schools.

Carolyn Avaire

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Permalink Reply by Brett on May 23, 2007 at 4:15pm

I definitely agree with you that could be a fabulous idea! =) I am not sure if that has been done anywhere before, but if it worked out Minnesota would be ahead of the curve for sure!

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Permalink Reply by Kim FB on May 23, 2007 at 9:38pm

Hi Carolyn -- I actually put the clearinghouse for student voices together for the Education|Evolving Web site (www.educationevolving.org). It's so nice to see that people use it!

That third link has lots of good resources relevant to this conversation. I'll take a look again and come back...

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Permalink Reply by Stacy Becker on May 24, 2007 at 6:33pm

If a student were added to the school board, do you think he/she would have the confidence to speak up and actively participate? I've been a part of a couple of boards that included younger adults, and usually they felt intimidated by the older, more experienced adults. How could we make sure that the students' perspective was fully heard?

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Permalink Reply by Brett on May 25, 2007 at 8:40am

I think that we would have to include students that would be ok with actively speaking up and make sure that they knew there would not be anything wrong with them speaking and that their opinions are valid. I know being on a few boards where I was the youngest and didn’t always feel comfortable with speaking up, when I was often not taken as seriously. I think if the school board is willing to cooperate with letting students on the board they would probably be more active listeners than my experience (which by the way was at my previous district school.) I think that maybe if there was a student and a teacher that shared a position together that knew each other, or someone from . . . maybe even the students speak out website (since they have been able to gain so much information about student opinion) that could represent a more full perspective on the schools as well the student would be more comfortable.

Should the student representative change, should each meeting be a different student/student and teacher or might it just be every month they alternate? What age would this student be . . . high school middle school or any age?

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Ford on May 25, 2007 at 12:38pm

These questions are interesting, because we (the Citizens League) are in the middle of putting together a committee that will include both students and adults. One of the things I've been thinking of is "teaming up" each student with one of the adult members - they could work together to make sure that the students was listened to, the adult could serve as a mentor, they could toss ideas around together before meetings, and so on. That could work on a school board, too - it's similar to what you're saying about having a teacher and a student share a spot.

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Permalink Reply by Brett on May 29, 2007 at 3:59pm

I like that idea a lot more because that would give a more broad veiw of what the students want and they could throw around their ideas together and improve them before it got to the school board (that would make it more efficient too.)

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Ford on May 29, 2007 at 5:45pm

I just looked at the Sound Out site, and there's lots of info on there about students voting (for school board), too. Another interesting idea! Even if there were not a student on the school board, students would still have input into their decisions.

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Permalink Reply by Traci Parmenter on May 31, 2007 at 10:10am

My organization, Admission Possible, has two spots on the board reserved for students who have just graduated from high school and completed our program (so they're college students). This works really well! The key is that other board members value their opinion and ask for their participation, and we do recruit program alums that we think won't be intimidated to speak out and voice their opinions. They serve a full term (which for us is three years) just like the other board members, and have all the rights and responsibilities other board members do.

But what Brett says (below this post) is, I think, absolutely critical. The second it becomes a token, where the student is just there for show and to look like the board is inclusive without actually being taken seriously, it will all fall apart. As he says, they'll know right away that it's all just a game, and will respond accordingly.

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Permalink Reply by MattySpaniol on June 11, 2007 at 5:45pm

I think Brett makes some good points. Getting students socialized into bureaucratic roles in diversified work role situations that emphacize arts, music, world studies, development. Chile makes good use of vouchers that seprate and go at a speed that students self select to study in challenging situations.
The students are seriously pissed off here in Copenhagen, Denmark. Students have just come out of protests in Venezuela about censorship.

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Permalink Reply by Kim FB on June 13, 2007 at 10:16am

Matty -- Say more about what's happening in Denmark. Know of any good Web sites that can explain the program in Chile? Are there other ways to get at self-selecting study -- besides vouchers?

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Permalink Reply by Brett on June 17, 2007 at 11:01pm

If we do work out all the kinks we can find in the possibility of kid on the school board-How do we go about getting a student representative on the school board? Is there going to be a lot of rules we are going to have to change or "work around," or has it just never been implemented the opportunity of a student on the board?

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