001one reason that students should be involved in decision making regarding schools is because at the end of the day it doesn't affect just you it affects everybody in that school and surrounding schools and for you to make change on things that you don't like about your school or any other school for that matter it starts with student voice to be able to express those concerns about the school our district strongly believes that students are the priority and for student voice to be the or for students to be the priority student voice has to be heard I think every District needs a school board rep it goes back to that simple philosophy if you are doing it for the students then you will have student voice other things include student advisories which are students from elementary
002middle school and high school they work with the superintendent on student voice and these advisories and these positions are only successful if students feel safe if they feel trusted and they feel like that their voice is going to carry some weight to it so I think if you have students that feel safe and that feel respected in your school district then adding these positions will be easy and it will be it'll help districts have more student voice I think that student voice and governance is extremely important because it's our education and so as students we should be able to voice our opinions on our own education so that we are getting what we feel is the best for us I think being able to represent students from preschool all the way to the 12th grade
003is such an awesome opportunity we get to voice everybody's opinion and just make sure that we're really representing all of those people I think one instance and that I've just sticks in my memories I had a student come up to me and share an experience that they had and I got to use that as something that I reiterated to my board let them know hey this is going on and I think this student wasn't the only person feeling that way and so we made some changes and it really helped students in our district feel more included as a student you should remember that your voice matters one of the things I realized when I worked for the state superintendent's office I was one of the few Educators who was asked to go to the hill
004all the time so I was I was on Capitol Hill advocating with lawmakers and what I realized is we were not talking to the people who were most impacted by legislation so you had really well-intentioned well-meaning decision makers whether in our state legislature whether districts superintendents making policy about people they were not talking to and so I think whether we're writing legislation about students or about Educators we absolutely need to speak with those for whom we are writing legislation because here's what happens when we don't we cannot possibly write good legislation if we're not hearing from the people who will be most impacted by it there are lots of ways that students voices can be heard and student Reps for their school board is one really critical way school boards are making the most direct
005decisions about what happens in school buildings and when school districts have the opportunity to engage students in that process it's really critical and so young people who are watching this this is a great opportunity for you to have your voice heard for school directors watching this I want to encourage you to do whatever it takes to reach out to students in your school community and let them know you want to hear their voices that this is not just a token position you're not looking to just check a box you really genuinely want to get to know students and you want to hear from them and so being a student rep on a school board I think is really critical because it allows a consistent way to hear from students it becomes part of the practice
006of running school board meetings to listen to students there are ways to to listen to student advisory boards and communities but I think having members on the board even if they can't vote and listening to them that's really important you have to listen to them you have to take their advice seriously and realize that they represent more voices than just the one or two at your table can help you make more effective decisions for your students students I I know I am old now I'm 51 years old so I've been out of school for a long time but I've been working with young people for 30 years and what I would say to every young person watching is your voice matters you do not have to have a degree for your voice to matter you
007don't have to speak English as a first language for your voice to matter you don't need to be a straight A student for your voice to matter you don't need to be an ASB leader you don't need to be in deca you need to want to make your school Community the best place it possibly can be and this is the most effective way to do that during the time that I have been on the Olympia School District Board of Directors I've had the privilege of working alongside many student Representatives when I joined the board five years ago we had one student representative and I'm proud to say that we now see four student Representatives one from each of our high schools some of the impacts that our student Representatives have made are centered on leading
008conversations around Equitable funding advocating with our legislators and other decision makers when we explored the idea of changing school start times our student representatives were instrumental in helping to generate student input which helped us make the best decision for our community then when the pandemic hit we were so lucky to have two very active and engaged student Representatives who really led a lot of the conversations about what students were needing most how they were feeling and how we should be directing our funding and our work towards remote learning and also the pace that opening up currently our four student reps are leading the equity policy work from a student perspective in our district so they have assembled their own Equity policy team from across our district populated with students who are passionate about equity and
009represent a diverse cross-section of the students in our buildings they are designing surveys they are designing social media campaigns they are working on focus group protocols and they are speaking for students with courage and tenacity when it comes to advocating for the Equitable education that all of our students deserved and it's not always easy for them so if you do have student Representatives and you Empower them to do this important and meaningful work you also need to make sure that you set up situations in place and it's not always easy for them so if you do have student Representatives on your board and you Empower them to do this meaningful and important work you also need to be prepared to support them when the work that they are doing is difficult when not everyone in
010the community is on board with the work that they are doing you need to remind your community that student voice is the most important voice at the table and no matter what you believe or think about education none of it is as important as what your students think or believe about their education a difference that I feel that I made last year along with my senior student representative last year was we actually had a racist post that was posted on social media by a student in our district and we were actually able to have the first meeting with the school board and our superintendent to make sure that the equity policies that we had were fulfilling for the school district and to add any commentary on that so we actually made the equity policy in
011our district deeper and more specific so it could serve our students best a way that school boards can better and affect more effectively involve student voice is through one way that my school board actually brought to the table recently is student advisory votes so although student Representatives can't actually be a voting member of the school board through student advisory votes you can see if students really like the policies and initiatives that are going through the board another way is to have meetings about policy it doesn't have to be an actual board meeting as I know there are rules around that but maybe a meeting with the superintendent and one of the board members to really see if the policy that the board is bringing forward is clearly affecting students in a positive way