Stakeholders

[Anonymous]

This is a bit of a s/o from the other thread. Is anyone (who has actual power) asking the students what is wrong with the existing system? I would think that the kids in high school who have grown up in PGCPS schools probably have a really good sense of what is and isn't working. Does anyone actively solicit input from the kids? They are stakeholders in this too. I'm not sure how this Baker takeover is going to play out, but he's at least putting some people on the board who are supposed to have some sort of background expertise that makes sense with being in a position of responsibility for educational decisions. I would be curious as to whether it would be helpful to get a voice for the students (not an adult speaking for them, but an actual high school student) on the board and maybe an actual PGCPS teacher (though perhaps that is a conflict of interest?). I don't have a good idea as to how they'd do that, maybe have each high school have a student rep that sits on a sort of student senate of sorts and then they elect one member to be the liaison to the board or something like that. My kids are very young still, so maybe something similar already happens, but I'm bothered by the seeming lack of input from students. The recaps of the board meetings seem to primarily be about infighting between the board members often about nothing directly related to the schools (misuse of credit cards by members for example).

[Anonymous]

I'm 99% sure that there is a student Representative on the board. They do not have voting rights though.

[Anonymous]

http://www1.pgcps.org/board/ahmed/

Also here is last year's student member speaking right before her term was over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olU0kARna30

[Anonymous]

Awesome, this is good to know. Does this rep get to participate in the closed door board sessions? I'm assuming this is what she refers to when she said the rep was not allowed in exec meetings. She's an impressive young lady. I'd personally like to see the student member have voting right though.

I like the speech and her interview. I found the full speech that the excerpt was from and she seems to be spot on. I'm somewhat embarrassed that we have a high school student calling out the grown ups on the board for the nonsense bickering and infighting. How sad is that?

[Anonymous]

There are days I think we ought to turn the world over to the 16-24 y.o. set. Their tolerance for BS is much lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a bit of a s/o from the other thread. Is anyone (who has actual power) asking the students what is wrong with the existing system? I would think that the kids in high school who have grown up in PGCPS schools probably have a really good sense of what is and isn't working. Does anyone actively solicit input from the kids?

Yes, we agree. That is why we have twice voted for David Murray for school board representative for District 1. He was the student representative to the MD Board of Education when he was at ERHS. He had a lot of good ideas and recent experience with being in the system. But first he was beaten out by Rosalind Johnson who frankly was old and out-of-touch (she didn't even live in the area and tried to represent our school district?!?!?). That was a pretty useless representative for District 1 who wasted the taxpayers money.

We'll have to see how Zabrina Epps does, but I'm with you and think that we need to have this type of representation for PG County. Hopefully David will not give up. He was much closer this time than against Rosalind Johnson (I can't say why).

[Anonymous]

I know we have the one board member who is very young (Burroughs). And I think a youngster gave Verjeana a run for her money in the last election. Maybe things will trend that way. I'm interested to see who Baker puts on the board. I'm hoping that will give more indication of the general direction things will move.

[Anonymous]

Rosalind Johnson was terrible. I liked David Murray too. I don't know how I feel about Zabrina Epps. David impressed me because he was willing to listen to others, and was willing to change his position on things when he had researched them more. Our elected board is so poor and with such bad relations with the county and superintendents, that I am willing to entertain that going back to some appointed members might not be all bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rosalind Johnson was terrible. I liked David Murray too. I don't know how I feel about Zabrina Epps. David impressed me because he was willing to listen to others, and was willing to change his position on things when he had researched them more. Our elected board is so poor and with such bad relations with the county and superintendents, that I am willing to entertain that going back to some appointed members might not be all bad.

+1 I would actually have been in favor of Baker's original plan (it was modified before being passed). I'm not saying Baker can solve it. But I do think there needs to be some radical change. And I, frankly, don't think it's going to come through the elected board. the problem with that model is that most people vote on name recognition; it's why it's so hard to boot out incumbents. And I feel like it's pretty clear the school board is complacent at best and dysfunctional at worst. Not to mention, I sense that they're primarily interested in maintaining the status quo and maintaining their power. But it is clear they are not working.

I think something pretty radical needs to happen to make them realize they need to be more responsive and that people want to see results.