Over the last few years we’ve seen students trying to get more of a say in how schools work. If you think about it, in some ways you almost have to ask, why didn’t someone think of this sooner?

Students are "on the ground," they’re the ones in the classrooms day-to-day, riding the buses, eating the cafeteria food and doing laps in the gym. Most of all, at the end of the day, school districts are there to serve the students, right?

This is what seemed so interesting to me in writing today’s column. The student representatives, who are still a work-in-progress of the school system, get to be a part of the decision making…but only to a point. Their votes are largely for show and do not count on the official record.

But the student reps I spoke to said they believe that just being at meetings – expressing what’s on their minds and the minds of students in their schools – is pretty powerful.

At a time when extremely tight budgets dictate tough decisions about what stays and what goes, they want to be at the table to let people know what makes a difference to students. As student rep Maureen Quinn said,

"Schools like Portland and Deering are so big," she said. "Everyone needs to have their own place to be and that's what makes extracurricular so important."

The Portland School Committee first welcomed student representatives from Deering High School and Portland High School in 2004. This past winter the committee voted to allow a student from Casco Bay High School, the expeditionary high school that has had increasing enrollment since it opened in 2005.

At Gorham High School last fall, 10 students were elected to serve on the School Council, which is made up of 10 students and 10 staff members who decide on things like classroom policy, lunch schedules and parking.

On the state level the State Board of Education received a grant to add students to its ranks. A student from Hampden Academy also plans to ask the Legislature to consider a bill that would encourage more school districts around the state to add student members.

Back in the day when I was in high school I was involved in the Minneapolis Citywide Student Government, comprised of students from the city’s seven high schools, that in many ways acted as a student advisory group to the school board. It always seemed like the board and the superintendent were happy to listen to our concerns or ask for our input.

Of course the flip side to all of this is the idea that adults – in this case administrators, teachers, parents, education professionals – have the years of experience to make informed and sometimes tough decisions for school districts.

Any thoughts?

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