On Sept. 30, the school board, parents and other members of the Park community all gathered at Central Community Center, where the school board’s second meeting of the month was held. This meeting was strictly business, and as a result, the number of attendees was small.
According to school board member and chair Colin Cox, the school board tends to focus on how the decisions they make impact the students. He said opinions from students are important, and they hope to see more of their suggestions being considered when making decisions.
“Well, everything (that we do) impacts students. We try to make (the school board) very student-centered. We’re always thinking about the things that happen, (and) we think about this in terms of our budget, what is going to be best for our students? And that’s a rule, not an official rule, but a rule we go by, like, what does this mean for our students?” Cox said. “We’re always thinking about (making the best decision for our students), and hopefully with students involved as board members in some of the discussions, we’ll see more of that being incorporated into our decisions.”
Junior Amelia Ray said the school board should put more focus on improving programs that would help students in the long run. According to her, better educational resources for students and putting more attention on having good maintenance for the school would be the main differences she would like to see.
“The school board should do more things to help the students, and they should be making changes that directly affect the students’ experience instead of affecting higher-up things that we don’t really see a difference in,” Ray said. “(For example) better resources for teachers, more investments in our programs like concurrent college credit, IB (International Baccalaureate), AP (Advanced Placement) (and) the things that are going to save us money and time in the long run (is what the school board should focus on). Having a good maintenance team and investing in custodians (is) something that genuinely makes a difference.
Senior Aurora Pascual said students should be more aware about the changes that are being made. They said going to board meetings would be a good way to learn more about what’s going on directly rather than hearing it from others and get your concerns addressed.
“Students should be informed about the policies that the school is making. A lot of what we hear is from the grapevine of parents or through other students. Going to board meetings is a nice way to learn about things firsthand,” Pascual said. “Also, I don’t know how much they listen to student voices there, but if they do, that’s a good place to get yours heard.”
Cox said the main way the school board is trying to make the changes it wants is by getting more perspectives. He said that specifically focused sessions allow for more input from community members to be included.
“One of the things we did last year was some study sessions. We instituted the idea of study sessions, and we’ve often had that before. We had a variation of this, but now they’re specifically focused. That allows us to bring the board and cabinet members up to the table to have discussions about the biggest issues and to have more free-flowing conversations,” Cox said.
Pascual said the main reason students don’t typically attend board meetings is because of the meetings being at times when students are occupied with other activities. They said the meetings are typically more directed towards adults, like teachers and parents rather than students.
“(The school board meetings are) kind of at an inconvenient time. They’re right after school a lot of times, so if you have sports and stuff you can’t really go. I know there’s a website but we (students) don’t hear about it from teachers and it doesn’t get mentioned alongside other important information that’s shared with us,” Pascual said.
According to Ray, she would be interested in attending school board meetings and sharing her ideas with others. She said if you want to see better improvements being made, you have to be willing to put in work to make it happen.
“I would (attend meetings). I think that it’s important to be a representative of the student body. If people want to see actual change in the school, they have to be willing to be an advisor on the board or do something about it,” Ray said.
