Students deserve representation on New Haven Board of Education

Photo courtesy of Ruby Sinreich. Used under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

This article was written in collaboration with Margo Meteyer, Dave Puglisi, Yufan Xie, Nikki Sansone and Melissa Scott. It originally appeared in the New Haven Register.

High school students are constantly striving to have their voices heard. Many cities and towns in Connecticut have already helped by giving them a position on their local school boards. One of the few remaining areas to jump on the bandwagon, however, is the New Haven School District.

This is a year of change for New Haven; every 10 years the city’s charter is revised. The Citywide Youth Coalition is promoting a revision that would put two non-voting student representatives on the Board of Education. Students would be able to express their opinions on the decisions that affect them in the classroom. Having students on the board will provide a level of direct interaction that can’t be achieved without the passing of this revision on Nov. 5.

The coalition circulated a petition asking people to support the revision. Coalition members believe mandating student representatives will improve the quality of the board’s decisions, expand civic engagement of young people, and engage the entire student body as partners in education.

There’s reason to believe they’re right. Hamden Board of Education Chairman John Keegan said the students on his town’s board contribute a perspective other members can’t provide.

“The board has changed its approach for the better on certain issues thanks to the contribution of student members,” Keegan said.

Adult board members are not the ones sitting in the classroom every day. A partnership would enable the board to get a more accurate student view on issues in education.

Too often students’ voices are silenced by authority figures. Keegan said that in his town, having student representation “has opened up an opportunity for the young people of this town to gain insight plus a valuable experience...and to have made a real impact on the school district.” Hamden’s changes have given students more ability to steer the direction their education is going.

Students will benefit if New Haven follows in Hamden’s footsteps. Citywide Youth Coalition Executive Director Rachel Heerema explained that strong student representatives can work to make sure the voices of all students are heard. “They can be a conduit for the students from all schools to the board and the board to the students,” she said. “It has proved to be successful in other towns since the 60-70s.” Hamden is just one example of this success.

It would be better if even more students could sit on the board. Hamden has only one high school; New Haven has nine. Two students is a good start, but not enough to represent nine high schools. After all, how is a student from Wilbur Cross going to know what’s going on at Hill Regional?

Heerema has considered this problem. “All the research indicates that if you want to provide an adequate number for disadvantaged groups you need at least one third of the board to be students, but this was not politically attainable,” she said.

Other large school systems in Connecticut have handled this issue differently. Bridgeport’s charter allows for a student representative from each school to sit in on board meetings. If New Haven were to do it this way, there would be nine student representatives on the board.

Two students, not enough? Nine students, too many? Boston and Hartford have the perfect solution.

In each of these cities, students have their own district-wide councils composed of members elected by their individual schools. Two of these members serve as Board of Education representatives. The representatives then report back to their student councils, which make decisions and come up with ideas as a group. That way, students from all schools have some say in the process, and all the students work together.

In the future, this is the model New Haven should take. If New Haven’s charter revision does pass and students become part of the board, it may pave the way for a more elaborate, inclusive system like Boston’s or Hartford’s.

For now, New Haven needs to take action and get two students on the Board of Education. If passed, this revision will empower disadvantaged groups and keep school boards more accountable to the students – the people they’re supposed to be there to serve.