White County School Board student representatives said a new bill requiring all school boards to have one student representative seated has positives and negatives.
Junior Student Representative Isabella Sackett is currently serving her first year on the White County School Board. Sackett said often times school board members have a disconnect from the students.
“They truly don’t get to know about all that goes on within our school,” Sackett said. “So having students on the board that are able to advocate for their peers and also highlight all the good that goes on within our school is extremely beneficial and I would be happy if that was offered in the state of Tennessee to everyone.”
Senior Student Representative Joy McGill is currently serving her second year as a student representative in Whtie County. McGill said she likes the idea of student representatives being a part of every school board but does have concerns about the law only allowing one-year terms.
“From my experience last year being a part of the school board, that one year is not enough to really be more efficient and know what you’re doing as a student and as a school board member,” McGill said. “You need that extra year to get to know how everything works.”
Sackett and McGill both said they also have concerns about the bill only allowing one student representative per high school. Sackett said she hopes legislators will change the bill to allow more than one student representative per high school.
“Personally, I believe that only having one would be more of a detriment to putting a student on the school board because I know that this being my first year, you know,” Sackett said. “I go to Joy with a lot of questions like hey are we allowed to do this? hey what do you think about this? and you are also getting two different opinions.”
McGill said if the bill passes as it currently stands now, she believes students should be offered some sort of training before being thrown into the position. McGill said when she started as a student representative, she was intimidated at first and would imagine other students would feel the same.
“You’re not going to speak out and therefore there is gonna be no representation,” McGill said. “There would be no point of having a school student representative in the first place, so I definitely think there needs to be some sort of training or exposure so the students know what to expect.”
Sackett said although student representatives are a part of the school board, they are non-voting members and only provide opinions. Sackett said a big chunk of student representative responsibilities is doing their homework on legislation and school policies. McGill said there are actually many students who are interested in being a student representative.
“In my personal experience, there’s been several students that have shown interest in it,” McGill said. “Especially the more that they hear about it.”
Sackett said not many students know about student representative opportunities. Sackett said she believes more students would be interested if they knew about the opportunities.
The bill is titled Senate Bill 161 and House Bill 1199. The bill has yet to be discussed by state legislators in the current legislative session.
