Student Voices Can Prompt Change

“Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world”

• Roald Dahl

Ha, you must think. Changing the world. That’s ridiculous. The words might whisper and snicker inside your head. I’m one person, I couldn’t change a thing. The words clatter around, bouncing off the interior of your brain. I couldn’t change a thing…

Changing the world is a scary idea. There are so many ways it could change for the better. So many ideas and methods that need to be heard, that you all have, even if you don’t think you do. Change can be very overwhelming and terrifying – sometimes even worse than terrifying, but sharing those ideas is so inexplicably important. Changing the way things are – we wish it could happen with the snap of a finger or a rub of a genie’s lamp – is difficult, however. So ridiculously difficult. With all the rules and regulations, trying to be heard can feel like meeting a steel coated wall, with no way through. But, there are always ways that you can be heard, and a great way to start is in your own school community. 

We are the Superintendent’s Advisory Council. That sounds weird, I know. Many of you may not even know that we exist. Or, some may know of us but not truly know what work we do. Well, never fear, we’re here to explain it to you. Everything, so you know what you can do to make the bad school days, which we all have and sometimes more often than we wish to disclose, better. We want to make the school a better, a reformed place for the students coming into our high school. Being in high school is such a large part of developmental life. It shapes you as a person, teaches you lessons, and is supposed to be one of the happiest times in your life, but for many it is not. And we want to change that, but we must have the student body’s input, the student body’s help to do that. We want to make our school a place where everyone feels welcome and like they have equal opportunities in all we offer. As students, it’s our job to create that environment for our peers. 

This past year especially, we have been working on addressing the social-emotional aspect of students’ lives. As we all know, these past two years have been insane, completely so,  and many haven’t recovered, including ourselves. This isolation that we have been forced into for the past few years has taken a toll and continues to do so, and in that, we are working on trying to recover from it, as a school community. Currently, we are working on trying to make Wednesdays better for every student, so all are happy. We’re working on trying to figure out the best way to address the somewhat hectic lunch waves, which were difficult to figure out in general, with the pandemic, and we are working on trying to address some of the isolation we see  and are experiencing ourselves. We want students to feel happy here. We want to feel happy here, and that’s what we are trying to do. 

With that being said, we depend on your help. We are always open to new ideas about anything, even if it goes beyond the school walls, or may be controversial. As students, we know what it feels like to go unheard and feel lost. We know what it feels like to be different or on the outskirts. We know what it feels like to have a lack of motivation and to feel stressed and anxious. So we want to know any ideas that you may have to address those concerns or any others. High school is such a small part of our lives, but, again, it’s one of the most influential, so help us make it memorable.

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