Note that the thoughts expressed in this blog are my own and are not representative of the Massachusetts Association of Student Representatives, the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, or any other group.
Something interesting has occurred in Boston recently, Boston’s mayor Michele Wu signed a home rule petition to give two student representatives on the Boston School Committee the right to vote. This was right after she vetoed a home rule petition returning the School Committee to a fully elected body.
More interestingly is that some media outlets out towards Boston, namely WGBH who wrote a whole article about it, have written about this proposal and some of the reactions to it by various groups and officials. Absent from these articles is the bill that is currently in the statehouse to do this very same thing for all school committees in Massachusetts, not just Boston.
But in the WGBH article, some concerns were raised regarding giving student representatives the right to vote on their respective school committees, which I feel would be beneficial to discuss.
Response to Concerns
Giving Student Representatives Would Result in a Domino Effect Resulting in Other Stakeholders Asking for Voting Rights on School Committees
The first concern raised is that giving student representatives the right to vote would result in opening up “a can of worms” due to their stakeholder status, and that there is now potential for the “union president” and the “special education PAC” to ask for the right to vote. While this is a valid concern, I don’t really see this being too much of an issue.
Teachers unions already have a more powerful seat at the table then students do regarding school committee matters. Sure they don’t comment on anything unless they are aggravated by an action by the school committee or are dissatisfied by how bargaining is proceeding, but they still have a lot more power than students do currently. A school committee can ignore their student representatives or even their student body, but they can’t ignore the teachers union (unless they really want to get into trouble). If a teachers union is not happy about something the school committee is doing, the committee will be sure to hear about it and most likely be pressured into addressing whatever the union has raised. This is especially the case in this political (for a lack of a better term) climate where teachers unions are now holding illegal strikes. And also lets not forget that teachers unions have one thing that students don’t have, which is the power to collective bargain with the school committee regarding wages and working/learning conditions. It would also be a big stretch for a teachers union to advocate for a teacher to have a vote on the school committee, as that would be giving them even more power than they already have and create a lot of issues around voting on their collective bargaining agreements. I think it is safe to say that unions won’t be asking for voting rights on school committees.
For other groups such as the “special education PAC”, I still don’t believe this will be an issue because the members of special education PACs, as well as other district related groups (which tend to mostly be made up of parents), are made up of members who can vote and run for school committee. Nothing is stopping any parent or any parent member of these groups from running for a seat on their local school committee. Most students on the other hand can’t due to their age, so they have no other way to gain a voting seat at the table.
Student’s Ability to Think Critically and Understand their Responsibilities
The second concern raised has to do with student’s ability to be “fully and responsibly aware of their obligations to think critically and fairly”. Though a reasonable concern given that students brains are still developing, in my time as a student representative networking with other student representatives and other student leaders I feel confident saying that students do understand their obligations to think critically and fairly, as well as their general responsibilities in their roles.
I think my term as a student representative speaks volumes on how there are students out there that can understand their responsibilities and obligations in their role. But there are other examples as well. Take a look at former Billerica student representative Sean Simonini’s work on his school committee and founding the Massachusetts Association of Student Representatives. Take a look at former Worcester student representative Stacia Zoghbi’s work on her school committee and her front page article on the Boston Globe. Or even more recently the work student representative to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Eric Plankey put in when deliberating and voting on the charter school proposal in Worcester by actually reaching out to students in Worcester currently to hear their thoughts on the proposal. Its safe to say that there are students out there that do understand their roles and their responsibilities, as well as to think critically.
Heck I would even say that most students have more ability to think critically and fairly about decisions, as well as understand their responsibility of their roles and take them more seriously than some current local officials and even some of our current federal representatives.
Now there are some legitimate concerns regarding students ability to think critically and fairly about decisions before them. For instance, student representatives could be influenced by their parents when deciding on how to vote on a certain matter, rather than the student body they represent. But I don’t see this happening much, especially since that high schoolers (who will be the only student eligible to be student representatives on school committees) have a greater ability to think critically without influence than students in middle and elementary school.
Though I think the bigger concern is with student representatives being influenced to vote in favor of what the school administration or their student government advisor is in favor of due to the inherent power imbalance between school staff (both administrators and advisors) and students. Unfortunately this is a widespread problem in regards to student governance, and if student representatives get voting rights this could become more of an issue with voting rights now at stake. But I am hopeful that this could also not be the case and the weight of the law will prevent school administration and advisors from influencing student representatives to vote in a certain way (or weather some really bad publicity if it became public as was seen in Boston some time ago).
But I think the biggest concern will be getting student representatives who are willing to be dedicated to their role and the responsibilities that come to it. This is especially a concern as student representatives would be elected not appointed (as they should), and school elections can tend to devolve into “popularity contests” with the most “popular” person winning the election but isn’t dedicated to their role. This concern came up last year with the Massachusetts Association of Student Representatives, and I worked on template election procedures that were rigorous enough so that only students dedicated to their roles would end up on the ballot. I implemented these procedures at Taconic and they were also implemented at PHS, and it resulted in 5 student representatives who regularly show up at meetings and participate in school committee deliberations, which I think shows how successful the procedures worked. I believe if school committees and school districts put this amount of effort into designing and implementing their student representative election procedures, they will most likely get student representatives who are dedicated to their role and understand their responsibilities.
Conclusion
Student representative voting rights will continue to become a hot topic issue and more concerns will be raised about the proposal. And hopefully within the next couple of months the bill that is currently in the statehouse to require all school committees to have voting student representatives will gain more traction in the media. I would hate to see this become a Boston only proposal, while it should be a statewide proposal. It’s only fair to students that all school committees get student representative voting rights, not just Boston.