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« Check out today's online discussion on intelligent design | Main | Suggest a Topic » April 7, 2006 Getting Youth on BoardPosted by Brian Wheeler, Invited Contributor, at 1:55 PM | Educational Sessions & Workshops | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) Hello, my name is Brian Wheeler and I am excited to be one of the NSBA conference bloggers. While I blog at home as a school board member on school issues and for my work, this is my first assignment blogging a conference. If you are interested in learning more about blogging and schools, check out the Sunday morning panel at 8:45: "Blogs: The Community Engagement Tool for the 21st Century." I want to report briefly on my early bird session related to getting students on school boards. We had about 30 participants in our workshop which was led by Adam Fletcher from SoundOut. Adam also works as a trainer with Youth on Board. Adam asked a question in the beginning to get us thinking... "What would your school board be like if it was half students." There were quite a mix of comments ranging from chaos to inspiration!
I'll keep it short, but I want to give you two things to think about: 1) Adam proposed a set of principles for student-adult partnerships to serve as a framework for our relationships. This framework was created by 600 youth in the mid-1990s.
2) Here is the guidebook that Adam encouraged us to use as we explore getting students engaged and ON BOARD! Meaningful Student Involvement: Guide to Students as Partners in School Change [PDF download]. Other publications of interest are here. What do you think of students being on our school boards? Please chime in with a comment. Brian Trackback Pings TrackBack URL for this entry: http://boardbuzz.nsba.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/7200 Comments Posted by: Carol Saller on April 7, 2006 4:35 PM I think that having students on the school board would be a WONDERFUL thing! After all, the purpose of a school board is to be of service to...the STUDENTS! When developing a "Parent Organization" for Albemarle High School two years ago, we chose to make it a "PTSO", with the "S" standing for "STUDENT". We have positions for student representatives from each grade level, and we welcome their input. It is very enlightening to have the students' perspectives on school issues, and it is important to know their views. I feel that their input at the School Board level would be equally beneficial. It is also important for the students to know that their opinions are valued by their school system. Posted by: Brian Wheeler on April 7, 2006 7:44 PM Carol - Thanks for your comment. What a thrill to have my constituents back home commenting on our national conference weblog! I was sitting in the conference media room talking about blogging and community engagement at the very moment your comment arrived. It drove home my point that combining e-mail and blogs is an excellent community engagement tool for school board members [for other reading this, here is a link Regarding students on the school board, you may remember I brought this up on Posted by: Adam on April 8, 2006 12:23 AM Hi Carol! My name is Adam, and I facilitated the workshop Brian blogged about here. I just wanted to pass on a link to a publication the California State PTA put together several years ago on Successful Student Involvement. There is gold in those hills! Also, I would love to hear more thoughts from anyone who attended the session, especially after you've had a chance to let the workshop "marinate"... Posted by: Patty Ruth on April 9, 2006 10:31 AM We have had students represented on our school board for many years. They are elected to represent the high school student body by their peers. They are not voting members. They share updates at every board meeting, as part of our agenda. They also speak on any agenda item of their choice. We ususally have 2 student reps. This year we have 3 students.(That was a HS decision and it has been just fine.) The participation has varied from year to year depending on the students that are part of our group. Their participation has been very beneficial to the Board and to the District! Posted by: Mike Flacklestein on June 14, 2006 8:25 PM I live at 60738 Commonwealth in Seattle. Been up here before? |
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Only two participants were from school districts which already have student members on board, almost everyone else was there to learn about the pros an cons of student participation. I got the sense most favored the idea, but wanted to learn about how to initiate the process. Some participants said they were stonewalled by others back home after years of trying to make a place for students in the board room.