001I've always loved just like the government and the inner workings of all that stuff. I find it so interesting. So, yeah. It really is. So, this is a great opportunity. Yeah, exactly. Hi, my name is Lauren Armstrong. I'm a student Board of Education representative for North Willowby High School. I'm Marcus Katz, also a student Board rep, and we're both seniors. I've always been interested in student government, always been sitting in our class, class officers, and probably president this year. So, I just figured the Board of Education was just another thing I could do to get the student body's voice heard and making sure everyone felt included in the school. Yeah. I've also been involved in a lot of class officer work. Um, I've been in part of student council as well. So, I've seen the
002building administration aspect of sort of running the school and making events happen. I also had the opportunity to make the strategic action plan for the district and be a part of that committee and seeing the more administrative side of making everything work and the objectives of the district was really interesting to me. Originally, we went to conferences. I've went to a couple and Marcus went to one in the beginning, um, talking about leadership, um, different ways we can get our voice heard, how we can communicate better throughout the school, and bring that into the Board of Education meetings. So, we went through a lot of meetings, conferences, lectures on just how to truly make our voice as heard as possible. Cuz our purpose is to be representatives of the entire student population of the school
003district. So, we've set up an email so that students who have questions or concerns about the district or events or just anything they want potentially brought to the board, they tell us and they kind of pass it along so that we can bring it to the board members and have it discussed and just have a better voice for the students in the district. Yeah, we're trying to get some work done on an app. We think it'll be very beneficial that will give us first hand feedback through the students. We're the first um students that started this, so we're just trying to work out the kinks and get everything going. So, I'm hoping in the future like people can just jump right on board, start doing what they really want to get accomplished and Yeah, so
004in the future maybe we'll be able to sort of show them more of the roles and duties and they can then grow their responsibilities and be better advocates. >> So, I think this is an amazing opportunity going forward for people to get involved. I think it's a great idea to get a student perspective onto the board where the executive decisions are being made. So, not only students but the community knows that their students and their children are being heard. Yeah, I just hope we can grow that role and help be a role model for future student board reps to kind of continue and improve on what we've done. A lot of what I've learned as student rep has been involved in the decision making aspect and what it looks like when community members bring concerns
005to the Board of Education and sort of the process of deciding on procedures to find solutions and there's a lot of things that we're not allowed to be a part of and that goes into executive sessions but just being at the forums where they discuss sort of the direction that they want the district to go, future growth plans. We've been able to hear capital project plans. It's just I've learned a lot more about sort of the day-to-day keeping a school district going. Yeah, that takes Um it's a really interesting perspective to be on the that side of things. Um but just learning how to like balance differing of opinions, different outlooks on different situations, making sure everyone feels like their voice is really heard but doing what is best still for the school while making
006everybody happy. I feel like that's been a big part of this. Yeah. After graduation, I will be serving a 2-year mission, and I will be in Auckland, New Zealand for those 2 years. Um and then I've already been accepted to Brigham Young University, and I'm I will be going there hopefully in the fall of 2028 after I get home from my mission. And my goal is to pursue a degree in accounting or finance. I will be heading to college. I don't know exactly exactly know what college I want to go to yet, but um I'll be pursuing a degree in public policy and political science on a pre-law track. And coming from such a like a small school, like you walk down the hallways, I can probably name every person I see. Like everyone in
007our grade, I feel like I know personally. So, it's just some It's been It's really easy to connect. It's really easy to understand what the student body truly like needs and wants. Um I feel like that's what brings us close together. I love how many opportunities there are for me to get involved. Um because it's a smaller district, I can be involved in three sports a year. I can be involved in many different clubs. I'm able to be a part of the student board reps. Um there's just fewer people, which means that there's more that each person gets to do. Cuz we're not limited in the programs that we have. We still have a lot of the same things that a bigger school does. There's just fewer people, so I get to do more things.