As a student of STEAM, I have taken it upon myself to be representative of the school. Recently, I gained the opportunity to be a voice on the Superintendent Student Advisory Council. The council is composed of 28 students across 14 Fayette County Public High Schools. The 28 members of the council joined together on September 17th for our first meeting.
The first question I asked Dr. Liggins was, ‘Why make the student council?’ If you meet with the members of the school boards, how does meeting with students impact the choices to inform your decision making? He told the council that during his time as a superintendent, he realized something: he hadn’t been hearing the voices of students directly. Rather, he had been hearing through the staff of FCPS. Dr. Liggins described it to us as a game of telephone; the more people he went through, the more convoluted our voices became. So, he decided to start the council, allowing us to hear our voices directly.
He showed this to us with our first activity called ‘Start, Stop, and Continue.’ Each of the 28 members wrote on a Post-it note what we wanted to start seeing in our schools, and stop seeing, and what we wanted our schools to continue. We broke up into 3 groups and took rotations on what we thought was most important for each category. These were our voices being seen and heard. After we had completed each poster, we had to go around with 3 sticky dots and place them on what we deemed most important. These are now our next decisions for our next meeting in November.
Being on this council not only allows me to share what I think is best for STEAM, but also what I’ve heard from other students as well. This is a chance for students to share our concerns about what we think is not only best for us, but for every school in Fayette County. Whilst this first meeting was mostly an introduction, it still allowed me to see the future of the council and where FCPS is headed next.