January 3, 2025 • 25 mins
In today’s episode, Mark Clark, Board Chairman, Fayetteville City, Eric Jones, Director of Schools, Fayetteville City, and Braila, a Senior at Fayetteville City Schools, discuss the role of student representatives on Boards of Education and their impact on shaping the future of our schools. Listen today to hear insights on why student voices are essential in board governance.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
I'm Jenna Zwan and I'm Emily Warren and you'relistening to TSBA, Your Education Source.
Welcome back everybody. You are listening to theTSBA, Your Education Source, the podcast. And
today we are talking about studentrepresentatives. Importantly, from your
(00:27):
classroom to the boardroom, the importance ofthose representatives on the board of education.
And with us today to talk about this, we haveFayette Will City. They are a board of education
who have a student representative on their board.And with us to talk about this topic is Mark Clark,
who's the board chairman, as well as Eric Jones,who's the director of schools. And we are very
(00:49):
excited to have Brayla on the podcast as well. Sheis their student representative. So you're going
to get to hear her perspective and kind of why shefeels like it's important to be a rep on the board.
So thank you all so much for being here today. It's apleasure. Thank you for having us. Absolutely.
Happy to be here. So I'm going to kick it off and Ijust kind of want to throw it to you all. And I want to
(01:11):
hear from you about what is a studentrepresentative in your own words? And then what
role do they play on your board of education? Sure.I'll start out. Eric, feel free to chime in. For
many, many years, of course, we're a city schoolsystem. So really, as far back as I first became an
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ex-officio member of the Fayette Will City SchoolBoard in 1994, when I was elected Alderman, City
Alderman. Don't laugh, Emily. That was a long timeago. And to this day, it was a well-established
practice in those days. And it continues to thisday that we have a City Alderman who is assigned as
(01:53):
an ex-officio member of our school board. And welove that because we think it really gives us a
strong tie to our governing and funding body. Andwe are the City of Fayette Will's school system.
And so we really want them to be as well-informed aspossible and frankly, as supportive as possible
when it comes to all matters of education. And sowe've had a great relationship through our
(02:20):
ex-officio member on the city board. And it wasreally only, I guess, four years ago that we
decided, hey, we really should do a start with astudent representative to our board. And keep in
mind, though, we only started Fayette Will HighSchool. Our first class of sophomores was in the
(02:41):
fall of 2011. So we're still rather new to the wholehigh school business. We had been a junior high
program since 1967, 68. And so we, a few years intothe high school, realized, you know, we should get
one of our high school students to come join us atour monthly meetings. And so we did. About four
(03:05):
years ago, I will say that as far as the processgoes, the, it started out very informally. We just
sort of looked to the principal of FHS to select agreat student. They, you know, they select
students for a variety of boards around thecommunity, Chamber of Commerce, all sorts of
things, though, Fable Public Utilities, otherboards that our students get exposed to. And we can
(03:29):
talk about that more later, especially Eric,who's, was the first principal at FHS and can speak
in depth about those processes. But over the lastcouple of years, we've, we've started the student
rep to our school board is the student bodypresident, because we feel like that's a, that
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person has been uniquely by the students chosen asa, as a student leader. And it seems very
appropriate for that person to be the, to be theex-officio representative on the board. And
I'll, I'll let Eric add anything I've, I've missedto that question. Yeah. Mark's covered that very
completely and did a good job. It is important thatas you're going through the process and looking at
(04:17):
your available candidates that you take the inputof the students into regard and what better input
than an election. And so we've always hadfantastic candidates that are well prepared
based on their experience in leadership and otheractivities in the school. And again, we can go into
that later if some of the, in some of the detail. Iknow you've got some of that coming up in some
(04:38):
questions down the road. No, I think that's great.And that kind of does hop us to our next question
about the selection process. We have severalboards who don't have a student representative
and they're looking for, you know, a student rep,maybe one or two, some bigger districts have two,
and they wonder how to even pick. And I think you allkind of hit the nail on the head, the class
(05:02):
president, maybe even the class president of eachschool, multiple high schools. But I like that
idea. Yes, ma'am. One of the things that's reallyimportant, as Mark stated, the students have the
choice. They're going through their processesanyway. This just lends itself perfectly to our
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needs for a representative to, to gather input andprovide input to the school board of the school
system. Again, the students have made theirchoices. We also take into account activities
that students done. One of the big activities thatpretty much all of our people have had an
(05:44):
opportunity to be involved in is scope. I knowTSBA, you know, hopes scope every year. And back in
the early part of my career, I was always fortunateto be selected to take the scope kids up to
Nashville and had just so many good experienceswith so many wonderful young people who are now,
you know, a lot of them are grown and successfuladults. But I've never had a student who didn't
(06:07):
have a wonderful experience at scope. Thoseexperiences in communicating with their peers
across the state and gathering that information,that knowledge, you know, in civic process and
learning how to do their duty as a citizen and togather all this good information, bring it back to
(06:28):
the local school board. And it was like a once a yearsnippet of what we could have all year round. And
this is just kind of the next logical extension ofthat process that we get to have pretty much the
entire school year. Generally, the first meetingwe don't have in place are student representative
(06:50):
yet. But by the second meeting, we're usuallyready to go. And I believe, Breila, you've been
with us for two meetings at this point. Is thatcorrect? Yes, I'm pretty sure. I think that's
correct. But yeah, that's kind of how ourselection goes. We do make sure that the ex officio
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board members, be it the Alderman or the studentrepresentative are sitting at the board table
with us. We want their role to be very clear to thepublic because of course our meetings are open
meetings, but they're also recorded and posted.The recordings are posted on the website. So we
want that position to be something that the publicis aware of that we are officially including the
(07:35):
views and inputs from our students. You know, interms of why it's important, I think, you know, the
fact especially, especially in our journey asFayetteville City School System, once we added
the high school back in the, what, 2011, you come torealize very quickly, you know, high school
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students are young adults. We're no longer just,we no longer just have children in our care and in
our duties. You know, by graduation, some ofthese, some of these students are registered
voters in our community. And so, you know, theyhave a say in city and state election, national
elections. And so it makes perfectly good sense toentrust them to have a leader sitting with us and
(08:25):
bringing up issues that are important to thestudent body. And I love how you said a leader on the
board, a leader from the student body, and to havethem actually up there sitting with the board
members. And I think that is a great way for ourlisteners today who don't have a representative
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on the board from the student body thinking, whatdoes it look like? What is, when you implement
this, where does that student sit? They sit upthere with the board members and, Brayla, go
ahead, Mark. No, I just said that's right. No, Ithink that's perfect. I'm glad you mentioned that
because I did, Tom, but like you said, your openmeetings, it's being recorded and just
(09:08):
transparency. And you have a student who's verybusy. Brayla, I did not realize you were class
president. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. Youare very busy. I want to hear from you. When you're
thinking about you sitting up there with otherboard members, what is your role in thinking about
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representing your student body and how as classpresident do you try to put that in motion? So as
class president or as student body president, Ilike hearing from other students what they would
like to do, like any fun activities or any reallyanything that they think would be a good input to
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our school. And I love hearing that and then givingthat to our principals or our board of education
and really helping with that because I know when Iwas younger that I really wanted to ask people and
ask if we could do more things. I think it's perfectbecause you are a liaison between the students and
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the board of education and the director ofschools. And we've talked to a lot of students and
I'm glad that Eric mentioned scope because scopeis so important to us at T SBA. Some students don't
even know who their director of schools is and it'sjust because in a larger district sometimes
things get really busy and so I think it's great.You act as a liaison and you can take any student
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input and bring it back to the board. Yes. Iremember last year for example our student rep
last year at the first of all I'm I currently serveas chairman of the board and when we're when we're
finished with our items on the agenda I try toremember every time to ask the alderman if there's
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anything from the city of Fayetteville to discussor to mention to us and I try to ask our student rep
anything from the schools that we need to todiscuss or you want to bring up. And I remember last
year when it was coming time toward graduation inMay our student rep brought up the fact that they
were one of the to a to a bratilist point of havingmore activities. They wanted to sponsor a senior
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brunch and so we we would not I mean as board memberswould not have been aware of that activity
necessarily and it also became a way frankly someof us wanted to contribute and donate to that.
We're a very small system and so we really wanted tobe a part of that to to help make that a success for
our seniors and so like I say one of the things I tryto do every meeting is have a time at the end so that
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the student rep can can have a voice. The truth is asan ex-officio member neither the student rep nor
the alderman has a vote on any of the board actionsof course but we want them to have a voice and so
that's that's why I always try to remember to callon them and give an opportunity to to speak up.
Brayla are you a city lifer? Yes I am. I've beenhere. Right. I thought so. So I'll explain that
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quickly. And this is this is why I think Braley isanother great example of a student rep. And that is
that of course school choice is a big deal allacross the nation and in our state right now. And
the and the we're proud in Fayetteville andLincoln County that our community has school
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choice. There's a Fayetteville City schoolsystem and there's a Lincoln County school
system. And regardless of where you live in ourcommunity, you can attend either school system of
your choice. And so some students select a smallschool system environment that we we offer in the
Fayetteville City and others like the largeschool and all the things that they offer. And so so
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one of the things we do each graduation, there's apage in the annual in the yearbook that's
dedicated to city lifers. So if you came to cityschools as a kindergarten student and you are now
graduating from Fayetteville High School, wehonor them. And it's amazing how that percentage
has grown over time now that we have had the highschool for over a decade. And so the fact that our
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student rep this year coincidentally is also astudent is a city lifer is is even more meaningful
because I know that our student rep is veryintimately aware of everything going on at the
high school. But but our sooner rep really alsorepresents the middle school and the elementary
school. We only have those three buildings. And soit really is possible for Brello remembers her
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time at Fayetteville Middle School, and sheremembers her time at Ralph Askin School. And so
she if we're discussing something that has impacton the students or the staff or the environment or
life at that one of those other schools, she'slived it. So she knows exactly what we're talking
about and really what impact that might have on a ona student. And so I think for that reason, she's
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just she's a great student rep this year for ourboard. I could not agree more. Brello's
excellent. She does a good job in her interactionswith the board, but she does a great job
interactions with the other students, thefaculty, administrators, and she's at
everything. I've been a lot of different events,obviously, throughout the year. And it's rare to
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do any school or anything that you don't seeBrello, a core group of the city lifer seniors this
year who are just kind of leading the charge andeverything we do and it's appreciated. I like this
city life for club. Very let. So with you talking toother students, how and them knowing that you sit
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on the board of education as an ex officio member,how do you think that's helped other students or
other classmates get involved with schoolgovernance? I think that it's helped them get
involved with school governance because if theydon't like putting their voice out or they don't
like talking to higher ups, they can all they knowthat they can always come to me and talk to me about
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it, no matter what it is or what they have to say. AndI really like that because they know that they can
confide in me so that and they know that I will tellpeople about that. Because I bet you enjoy talking
to others and I bet you don't have any issue talkingin front of others, do you? I don't. I love talking.
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I love it. So being student body president, howmany students do you think come up to you per week to
ask you questions about you being on the board? Atleast 10. And that's a lot. I mean, even in bigger
school systems, that's a lot of students coming toyou to put their concerns. And if you, if Fatal City
Board of Education did not have you as that exofficio member, those 10 students would not have
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their voices heard. So when you hear thoseconcerns from your classmates, what do you do with
those concerns? I will talk with one of, I'll talkwith any of our principals about it and see what we
can do or our counselor to see what we can do to helpthat, to help them in any ways that they needed. So I
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love the fact that you're not just sitting on theboard, just sitting there listening, you're
taking back your classmates' concerns and you arekind of acting as a filter and you're taking some to
the Board of Education, but you're also helpingthem in other ways, taking them to the principal
and the counselor. So I like how you, as thatstudent representative, you kind of wear
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multiple hats. I do. I think it's exciting that youare in that position and that you kind of get a
different lens. And I do think it's going to helpyou post-graduation. You are learning
invaluable skills right now in just a sense ofprofessionalism that a lot of other students
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don't get to experience. Eric, one of the thingsthat I would use as encouragement to other school
systems who, who maybe don't have a student rep,you know, I feel certain those systems appoint,
like we do, we appoint students to a number ofcommunity boards and organizations. Do you, I'm
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catching you cold here, but you know, I know we do tothe Fayetteville Public Utilities. I know we do to
the Chamber of Commerce. What other boards,because you were principal there and you were
actually selecting students back in the day, doyou remember some of the other community
organizations? All the different boardsrelating to the different local banks, most of the
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banks have a specific board and they'll requeststudent representatives from our schools. You
mentioned the Utility Board. There's a localgovernment. We've had different boards for
different healthcare groups and a lot of thedifferent civic groups, also Main Street and some
of the civic organizations like that, as well asother, you know, just very specific groups that
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all schools and all systems would have studentsinvolved in things like governor's school and
boys and girls state and things of those natures,or things of that nature that will kind of apply
across the board. But I think at one point therewere over a dozen different committees and
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chambers who would accept studentrepresentatives. And of course, being a small
school system, we would share a proportion ofthose seats with the larger Lincoln County system
and the private school. There's a small privateschool in our community as well. And most all of
those groups were really open and welcoming tostudent input from all of the different schools.
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So being small, a lot of times, you know, we wouldhave over a quarter of our students able to
participate in one of these boards. And it is afantastic opportunity for leadership, much
like, you know, as Breila was discussing earlier,she has 10 students a week coming up to her with
different concerns. And I know that Breila is nostranger or not afraid of hard work at all. So she
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addresses that each of those students get asimilar opportunity. And the more we can build
those capacities within our students, the betterit does benefit them as they go into college or
career or military, whatever they choose to do asthey go forward. It's good preparatory
opportunities. Right. I think all of those, and Ithink especially the school board in the context
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of this podcast, you know, we're looking for waysto not not only educate these young people, but
also to encourage them to get involved inleadership in our community through life. And so
it really is kind of a circle of life moment everynow and then to welcome like this. This we just had
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our city elections. And this week we had our firstboard meeting with one of our new board members,
who of course was a student in Fayetteville CitySchools, that both Eric and one of our other
central office professionals had had had inmiddle school and high school and whatnot and
(20:33):
elementary school. And so it really is a circle oflife kind of moment to think we are truly raising
the next generation of leaders for our communityand for other communities across the state. And
seeing that as a whether it's an ex officio studentrepresentative or a new board member who's
elected really I think speaks to the success of howsuccessful this can be if we really take a if we make
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it a point to expose them to these opportunitieswhen they're when they're in school. Absolutely.
I appreciate you all being on today because I thinkit's very helpful for those districts who don't
have a student rep or there are some boards outthere who have had a student rep and they've kind of
fallen away from that process. So before we signoff today, any words of advice for other boards or
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our listeners today who would like to start thisprocess? Yes, I would absolutely like to
encourage everyone to participate with a studentmember on the board who can provide that direct
input from the students. It's it's so easy whenyou're working through the process of taking care
of the responsibility of being in those electedpositions or when you're from my position as a
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director working on the operations of the schooland the system to focus in on those all the tests
that are related to that and then that in doing thatyou're separated a little bit from the reality and
the experience of the student. But when you can'tget any closer to the to the student experience to
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know and have that just immensely importantinformation than having a student that is elected
by his or her peers to provide that directly to you.I don't know how you can get better information to
inform your decisions than that. Absolutely. Iwould just attack on to that that you know scope is
hugely popular across the state and andrightfully so and one of the exercises and
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purposes there is to expose students to mockschool board activities. I actually have to take a
topic debate it discuss it and come to a resolutionon on a topic as a as a mock school board. Well what
we're doing takes it to another level and that'swhy I think school systems that aren't doing this
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are missing out because this is exposing thatstudent to an actual school board setting and
actual school board decisions and so if scope isgood this is even better for the for the students
and so I highly encourage systems that considerdoing this and whatever process that works for
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them works for them. Obviously Eric I and others atthe fabled city school system would be open for any
communication if if someone wanted to askdetailed questions about how or what processes we
use or whatnot. Mostly I think it's just there areso many good capable students just select one in a
process that works for you and and you'll be amazedat at the the impact it may have on the schools as
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well as on your on your board itself. So thanks forthe chance to discuss what we think is a real
important aspect of our school board. Perfect Iappreciate you both. Umbrella I want to hear from
you one last time what would you say to otherstudents out there who are interested in this
position. I'd say to definitely take theopportunity and do it is a very good experience to
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have just so you know how what that what the schoolboard will talk about and everything that goes in
to being a school. No I think that's perfect and Iwant to tell you good luck. You being a senior you
have a lot going on student body president studentrepresentative and y'all she's wearing a
sweatshirt that says medical science club. I meanthis girl has it going on so big things are going to
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come from you and I know this will help that in thefuture so thank you all so much for being on today.
Thank you our pleasure. Thanks for joining ustoday. Whether you're driving to work or on your
back porch enjoying your morning coffee we hopeyou enjoyed this dive into public education. For
future episodes subscribe to our podcast by goingto iTunes and search for TSBA your education
(24:55):
source and click subscribe or you can check us outon our website at tsba.net. If you have any
questions about today's discussion please feelfree to reach out to us at podcast at tsba.net. Also
please rate this episode to let us know how we'redoing and tell us what topics you want to watch next
(25:18):
time on TSBA your education source.
I'm Jenna Zwan and I'm Emily Warren and you'relistening to TSBA, Your Education Source.
Welcome back everybody. You are listening to theTSBA, Your Education Source, the podcast. And
today we are talking about studentrepresentatives. Importantly, from your
(00:27):
classroom to the boardroom, the importance ofthose representatives on the board of education.
And with us today to talk about this, we haveFayette Will City. They are a board of education
who have a student representative on their board.And with us to talk about this topic is Mark Clark,
who's the board chairman, as well as Eric Jones,who's the director of schools. And we are very
(00:49):
excited to have Brayla on the podcast as well. Sheis their student representative. So you're going
to get to hear her perspective and kind of why shefeels like it's important to be a rep on the board.
So thank you all so much for being here today. It's apleasure. Thank you for having us. Absolutely.
Happy to be here. So I'm going to kick it off and Ijust kind of want to throw it to you all. And I want to
(01:11):
hear from you about what is a studentrepresentative in your own words? And then what
role do they play on your board of education? Sure.I'll start out. Eric, feel free to chime in. For
many, many years, of course, we're a city schoolsystem. So really, as far back as I first became an
(01:33):
ex-officio member of the Fayette Will City SchoolBoard in 1994, when I was elected Alderman, City
Alderman. Don't laugh, Emily. That was a long timeago. And to this day, it was a well-established
practice in those days. And it continues to thisday that we have a City Alderman who is assigned as
(01:53):
an ex-officio member of our school board. And welove that because we think it really gives us a
strong tie to our governing and funding body. Andwe are the City of Fayette Will's school system.
And so we really want them to be as well-informed aspossible and frankly, as supportive as possible
when it comes to all matters of education. And sowe've had a great relationship through our
(02:20):
ex-officio member on the city board. And it wasreally only, I guess, four years ago that we
decided, hey, we really should do a start with astudent representative to our board. And keep in
mind, though, we only started Fayette Will HighSchool. Our first class of sophomores was in the
(02:41):
fall of 2011. So we're still rather new to the wholehigh school business. We had been a junior high
program since 1967, 68. And so we, a few years intothe high school, realized, you know, we should get
one of our high school students to come join us atour monthly meetings. And so we did. About four
(03:05):
years ago, I will say that as far as the processgoes, the, it started out very informally. We just
sort of looked to the principal of FHS to select agreat student. They, you know, they select
students for a variety of boards around thecommunity, Chamber of Commerce, all sorts of
things, though, Fable Public Utilities, otherboards that our students get exposed to. And we can
(03:29):
talk about that more later, especially Eric,who's, was the first principal at FHS and can speak
in depth about those processes. But over the lastcouple of years, we've, we've started the student
rep to our school board is the student bodypresident, because we feel like that's a, that
(03:51):
person has been uniquely by the students chosen asa, as a student leader. And it seems very
appropriate for that person to be the, to be theex-officio representative on the board. And
I'll, I'll let Eric add anything I've, I've missedto that question. Yeah. Mark's covered that very
completely and did a good job. It is important thatas you're going through the process and looking at
(04:17):
your available candidates that you take the inputof the students into regard and what better input
than an election. And so we've always hadfantastic candidates that are well prepared
based on their experience in leadership and otheractivities in the school. And again, we can go into
that later if some of the, in some of the detail. Iknow you've got some of that coming up in some
(04:38):
questions down the road. No, I think that's great.And that kind of does hop us to our next question
about the selection process. We have severalboards who don't have a student representative
and they're looking for, you know, a student rep,maybe one or two, some bigger districts have two,
and they wonder how to even pick. And I think you allkind of hit the nail on the head, the class
(05:02):
president, maybe even the class president of eachschool, multiple high schools. But I like that
idea. Yes, ma'am. One of the things that's reallyimportant, as Mark stated, the students have the
choice. They're going through their processesanyway. This just lends itself perfectly to our
(05:22):
needs for a representative to, to gather input andprovide input to the school board of the school
system. Again, the students have made theirchoices. We also take into account activities
that students done. One of the big activities thatpretty much all of our people have had an
(05:44):
opportunity to be involved in is scope. I knowTSBA, you know, hopes scope every year. And back in
the early part of my career, I was always fortunateto be selected to take the scope kids up to
Nashville and had just so many good experienceswith so many wonderful young people who are now,
you know, a lot of them are grown and successfuladults. But I've never had a student who didn't
(06:07):
have a wonderful experience at scope. Thoseexperiences in communicating with their peers
across the state and gathering that information,that knowledge, you know, in civic process and
learning how to do their duty as a citizen and togather all this good information, bring it back to
(06:28):
the local school board. And it was like a once a yearsnippet of what we could have all year round. And
this is just kind of the next logical extension ofthat process that we get to have pretty much the
entire school year. Generally, the first meetingwe don't have in place are student representative
(06:50):
yet. But by the second meeting, we're usuallyready to go. And I believe, Breila, you've been
with us for two meetings at this point. Is thatcorrect? Yes, I'm pretty sure. I think that's
correct. But yeah, that's kind of how ourselection goes. We do make sure that the ex officio
(07:10):
board members, be it the Alderman or the studentrepresentative are sitting at the board table
with us. We want their role to be very clear to thepublic because of course our meetings are open
meetings, but they're also recorded and posted.The recordings are posted on the website. So we
want that position to be something that the publicis aware of that we are officially including the
(07:35):
views and inputs from our students. You know, interms of why it's important, I think, you know, the
fact especially, especially in our journey asFayetteville City School System, once we added
the high school back in the, what, 2011, you come torealize very quickly, you know, high school
(07:59):
students are young adults. We're no longer just,we no longer just have children in our care and in
our duties. You know, by graduation, some ofthese, some of these students are registered
voters in our community. And so, you know, theyhave a say in city and state election, national
elections. And so it makes perfectly good sense toentrust them to have a leader sitting with us and
(08:25):
bringing up issues that are important to thestudent body. And I love how you said a leader on the
board, a leader from the student body, and to havethem actually up there sitting with the board
members. And I think that is a great way for ourlisteners today who don't have a representative
(08:46):
on the board from the student body thinking, whatdoes it look like? What is, when you implement
this, where does that student sit? They sit upthere with the board members and, Brayla, go
ahead, Mark. No, I just said that's right. No, Ithink that's perfect. I'm glad you mentioned that
because I did, Tom, but like you said, your openmeetings, it's being recorded and just
(09:08):
transparency. And you have a student who's verybusy. Brayla, I did not realize you were class
president. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. Youare very busy. I want to hear from you. When you're
thinking about you sitting up there with otherboard members, what is your role in thinking about
(09:28):
representing your student body and how as classpresident do you try to put that in motion? So as
class president or as student body president, Ilike hearing from other students what they would
like to do, like any fun activities or any reallyanything that they think would be a good input to
(09:51):
our school. And I love hearing that and then givingthat to our principals or our board of education
and really helping with that because I know when Iwas younger that I really wanted to ask people and
ask if we could do more things. I think it's perfectbecause you are a liaison between the students and
(10:14):
the board of education and the director ofschools. And we've talked to a lot of students and
I'm glad that Eric mentioned scope because scopeis so important to us at T SBA. Some students don't
even know who their director of schools is and it'sjust because in a larger district sometimes
things get really busy and so I think it's great.You act as a liaison and you can take any student
(10:35):
input and bring it back to the board. Yes. Iremember last year for example our student rep
last year at the first of all I'm I currently serveas chairman of the board and when we're when we're
finished with our items on the agenda I try toremember every time to ask the alderman if there's
(10:58):
anything from the city of Fayetteville to discussor to mention to us and I try to ask our student rep
anything from the schools that we need to todiscuss or you want to bring up. And I remember last
year when it was coming time toward graduation inMay our student rep brought up the fact that they
were one of the to a to a bratilist point of havingmore activities. They wanted to sponsor a senior
(11:22):
brunch and so we we would not I mean as board memberswould not have been aware of that activity
necessarily and it also became a way frankly someof us wanted to contribute and donate to that.
We're a very small system and so we really wanted tobe a part of that to to help make that a success for
our seniors and so like I say one of the things I tryto do every meeting is have a time at the end so that
(11:50):
the student rep can can have a voice. The truth is asan ex-officio member neither the student rep nor
the alderman has a vote on any of the board actionsof course but we want them to have a voice and so
that's that's why I always try to remember to callon them and give an opportunity to to speak up.
Brayla are you a city lifer? Yes I am. I've beenhere. Right. I thought so. So I'll explain that
(12:17):
quickly. And this is this is why I think Braley isanother great example of a student rep. And that is
that of course school choice is a big deal allacross the nation and in our state right now. And
the and the we're proud in Fayetteville andLincoln County that our community has school
(12:38):
choice. There's a Fayetteville City schoolsystem and there's a Lincoln County school
system. And regardless of where you live in ourcommunity, you can attend either school system of
your choice. And so some students select a smallschool system environment that we we offer in the
Fayetteville City and others like the largeschool and all the things that they offer. And so so
(13:02):
one of the things we do each graduation, there's apage in the annual in the yearbook that's
dedicated to city lifers. So if you came to cityschools as a kindergarten student and you are now
graduating from Fayetteville High School, wehonor them. And it's amazing how that percentage
has grown over time now that we have had the highschool for over a decade. And so the fact that our
(13:27):
student rep this year coincidentally is also astudent is a city lifer is is even more meaningful
because I know that our student rep is veryintimately aware of everything going on at the
high school. But but our sooner rep really alsorepresents the middle school and the elementary
school. We only have those three buildings. And soit really is possible for Brello remembers her
(13:50):
time at Fayetteville Middle School, and sheremembers her time at Ralph Askin School. And so
she if we're discussing something that has impacton the students or the staff or the environment or
life at that one of those other schools, she'slived it. So she knows exactly what we're talking
about and really what impact that might have on a ona student. And so I think for that reason, she's
(14:14):
just she's a great student rep this year for ourboard. I could not agree more. Brello's
excellent. She does a good job in her interactionswith the board, but she does a great job
interactions with the other students, thefaculty, administrators, and she's at
everything. I've been a lot of different events,obviously, throughout the year. And it's rare to
(14:37):
do any school or anything that you don't seeBrello, a core group of the city lifer seniors this
year who are just kind of leading the charge andeverything we do and it's appreciated. I like this
city life for club. Very let. So with you talking toother students, how and them knowing that you sit
(14:59):
on the board of education as an ex officio member,how do you think that's helped other students or
other classmates get involved with schoolgovernance? I think that it's helped them get
involved with school governance because if theydon't like putting their voice out or they don't
like talking to higher ups, they can all they knowthat they can always come to me and talk to me about
(15:20):
it, no matter what it is or what they have to say. AndI really like that because they know that they can
confide in me so that and they know that I will tellpeople about that. Because I bet you enjoy talking
to others and I bet you don't have any issue talkingin front of others, do you? I don't. I love talking.
(15:40):
I love it. So being student body president, howmany students do you think come up to you per week to
ask you questions about you being on the board? Atleast 10. And that's a lot. I mean, even in bigger
school systems, that's a lot of students coming toyou to put their concerns. And if you, if Fatal City
Board of Education did not have you as that exofficio member, those 10 students would not have
(16:05):
their voices heard. So when you hear thoseconcerns from your classmates, what do you do with
those concerns? I will talk with one of, I'll talkwith any of our principals about it and see what we
can do or our counselor to see what we can do to helpthat, to help them in any ways that they needed. So I
(16:26):
love the fact that you're not just sitting on theboard, just sitting there listening, you're
taking back your classmates' concerns and you arekind of acting as a filter and you're taking some to
the Board of Education, but you're also helpingthem in other ways, taking them to the principal
and the counselor. So I like how you, as thatstudent representative, you kind of wear
(16:47):
multiple hats. I do. I think it's exciting that youare in that position and that you kind of get a
different lens. And I do think it's going to helpyou post-graduation. You are learning
invaluable skills right now in just a sense ofprofessionalism that a lot of other students
(17:07):
don't get to experience. Eric, one of the thingsthat I would use as encouragement to other school
systems who, who maybe don't have a student rep,you know, I feel certain those systems appoint,
like we do, we appoint students to a number ofcommunity boards and organizations. Do you, I'm
(17:30):
catching you cold here, but you know, I know we do tothe Fayetteville Public Utilities. I know we do to
the Chamber of Commerce. What other boards,because you were principal there and you were
actually selecting students back in the day, doyou remember some of the other community
organizations? All the different boardsrelating to the different local banks, most of the
(17:54):
banks have a specific board and they'll requeststudent representatives from our schools. You
mentioned the Utility Board. There's a localgovernment. We've had different boards for
different healthcare groups and a lot of thedifferent civic groups, also Main Street and some
of the civic organizations like that, as well asother, you know, just very specific groups that
(18:22):
all schools and all systems would have studentsinvolved in things like governor's school and
boys and girls state and things of those natures,or things of that nature that will kind of apply
across the board. But I think at one point therewere over a dozen different committees and
(18:43):
chambers who would accept studentrepresentatives. And of course, being a small
school system, we would share a proportion ofthose seats with the larger Lincoln County system
and the private school. There's a small privateschool in our community as well. And most all of
those groups were really open and welcoming tostudent input from all of the different schools.
(19:07):
So being small, a lot of times, you know, we wouldhave over a quarter of our students able to
participate in one of these boards. And it is afantastic opportunity for leadership, much
like, you know, as Breila was discussing earlier,she has 10 students a week coming up to her with
different concerns. And I know that Breila is nostranger or not afraid of hard work at all. So she
(19:29):
addresses that each of those students get asimilar opportunity. And the more we can build
those capacities within our students, the betterit does benefit them as they go into college or
career or military, whatever they choose to do asthey go forward. It's good preparatory
opportunities. Right. I think all of those, and Ithink especially the school board in the context
(19:52):
of this podcast, you know, we're looking for waysto not not only educate these young people, but
also to encourage them to get involved inleadership in our community through life. And so
it really is kind of a circle of life moment everynow and then to welcome like this. This we just had
(20:12):
our city elections. And this week we had our firstboard meeting with one of our new board members,
who of course was a student in Fayetteville CitySchools, that both Eric and one of our other
central office professionals had had had inmiddle school and high school and whatnot and
(20:33):
elementary school. And so it really is a circle oflife kind of moment to think we are truly raising
the next generation of leaders for our communityand for other communities across the state. And
seeing that as a whether it's an ex officio studentrepresentative or a new board member who's
elected really I think speaks to the success of howsuccessful this can be if we really take a if we make
(20:57):
it a point to expose them to these opportunitieswhen they're when they're in school. Absolutely.
I appreciate you all being on today because I thinkit's very helpful for those districts who don't
have a student rep or there are some boards outthere who have had a student rep and they've kind of
fallen away from that process. So before we signoff today, any words of advice for other boards or
(21:23):
our listeners today who would like to start thisprocess? Yes, I would absolutely like to
encourage everyone to participate with a studentmember on the board who can provide that direct
input from the students. It's it's so easy whenyou're working through the process of taking care
of the responsibility of being in those electedpositions or when you're from my position as a
(21:49):
director working on the operations of the schooland the system to focus in on those all the tests
that are related to that and then that in doing thatyou're separated a little bit from the reality and
the experience of the student. But when you can'tget any closer to the to the student experience to
(22:10):
know and have that just immensely importantinformation than having a student that is elected
by his or her peers to provide that directly to you.I don't know how you can get better information to
inform your decisions than that. Absolutely. Iwould just attack on to that that you know scope is
hugely popular across the state and andrightfully so and one of the exercises and
(22:36):
purposes there is to expose students to mockschool board activities. I actually have to take a
topic debate it discuss it and come to a resolutionon on a topic as a as a mock school board. Well what
we're doing takes it to another level and that'swhy I think school systems that aren't doing this
(22:56):
are missing out because this is exposing thatstudent to an actual school board setting and
actual school board decisions and so if scope isgood this is even better for the for the students
and so I highly encourage systems that considerdoing this and whatever process that works for
(23:17):
them works for them. Obviously Eric I and others atthe fabled city school system would be open for any
communication if if someone wanted to askdetailed questions about how or what processes we
use or whatnot. Mostly I think it's just there areso many good capable students just select one in a
process that works for you and and you'll be amazedat at the the impact it may have on the schools as
(23:41):
well as on your on your board itself. So thanks forthe chance to discuss what we think is a real
important aspect of our school board. Perfect Iappreciate you both. Umbrella I want to hear from
you one last time what would you say to otherstudents out there who are interested in this
position. I'd say to definitely take theopportunity and do it is a very good experience to
(24:05):
have just so you know how what that what the schoolboard will talk about and everything that goes in
to being a school. No I think that's perfect and Iwant to tell you good luck. You being a senior you
have a lot going on student body president studentrepresentative and y'all she's wearing a
sweatshirt that says medical science club. I meanthis girl has it going on so big things are going to
(24:30):
come from you and I know this will help that in thefuture so thank you all so much for being on today.
Thank you our pleasure. Thanks for joining ustoday. Whether you're driving to work or on your
back porch enjoying your morning coffee we hopeyou enjoyed this dive into public education. For
future episodes subscribe to our podcast by goingto iTunes and search for TSBA your education
(24:55):
source and click subscribe or you can check us outon our website at tsba.net. If you have any
questions about today's discussion please feelfree to reach out to us at podcast at tsba.net. Also
please rate this episode to let us know how we'redoing and tell us what topics you want to watch next
(25:18):
time on TSBA your education source.
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