Students met Monday evening March 15th, 2021 with the Kirksville School Board and administrators to discuss ways to improve communication between students and the board.
Present at the meeting were studentry president Olivia Chapman and National Honor Society Vice-President Chris Marshall met the Executive Committee members of the school board Nan Davis (President), Gayla McHenry (Vice President), Jeremy Houser (Secretary), as well as high school principal Christopher Best and Superintendent Robert Webb.
Chapman contacted Webb to set up the meeting after students had been meeting and discussing the school board’s decision to return to full in-person learning. According to Marshall, students were “Feeling unheard regarding our concerns about anything.”
Superintendent Webb said in an email that his “thoughts going into the meeting were those of curiosity about [student] intentions, wanting to understand rumors that had been circulated within the school and community, and desire to truly include the student perspective in conversations that directly affect them.”
The meeting resulted in exploring how to increase student voice.
Chapman said “we decided as a group that student representation was necessary and the most direct and effective way to do that would be to put at least one student on the board as a sitting but non-voting board member”.
However, in Webb’s email he was clear that “the group will meet again with the intention of exploring how we can best have high school student representation present at all of the board meetings in the future.”
Nan Davis, Kirksville School Board President, said in an email that in the meantime she “would explore models of other districts who have student board representatives and the legalities with [the Missouri School Board Association].”
The meeting stemmed from unease among students regarding the return to full-in person, but it was not the focus of the meeting.
Chapman explain further, the meeting focused on “how to improve communication between students and the board” because going to full in-person made some students mad.
Marshall concurred “COVID was more of just a catalyst for it and we wanted to improve communication for the future.”
The situation surrounding the return made it very apparent to Chapman “that we don’t know how to talk to the board”. Marshall agreed “We wanted to reach out to them but we didn’t know how, that is how we arrived at this meeting.”
According to Chapman, many students were sending emails to board members on a weekly or even daily basis. The content of their emails were not constructive though. According to Chapman “they were mostly just composed of ‘you suck’ and ‘do better’. Davis concurred that “the majority of these emails were disrespective in nature.”
Another catalyst of this ire was students feeling snubbed when in their February 23 board meeting Nan Davis seemingly dismissed a student petition meant to keep the high school at level 2. The petition included the signature of nearly 200 high school students.
The petition circulated through the high school on Tuesday February 22, the day before the board meeting and caught the other half of students on the day of the board meeting. It was then passed on to Mr. Webb who gave it to the board.
However Davis clarified, “At the previous board meeting when I sat down to begin the meeting there was a petition sitting there. I had heard there was a petition but was somewhat surprised it was there and I had no time at all to go over it or get any clarification prior to the meeting. So at the end of the board meeting I addressed that we had received it and thanked the students for their interest.”
There is a board policy requiring 24 hour notice on all discussion items for the school board. Davis confirmed stating “legally the agenda of the board has to be posted 24 hours in advance and it is frowned upon to deviate from the agenda.”
Students were unaware of such a policy.
There is another meeting with this group on April 12th to discuss this issue further.
There is a precedent from other schools who have done something similar. Clayton High School in Missouri explains it this way on their school board website “The concept of a Student Representative to a school board is used throughout the country. Student representatives sit at the Board table for all meetings, have a voice in commenting on issues, share concerns related to study items and bring back information to the student body. The Clayton Board of Education Student Representative process allows for a broader representation of the varied student voices throughout the District.”
There is a committee of students that meet with Mr. Webb. Marshall is a member of the superintendent's Student Advisory Committee which Webb formed last year because he “believe having this kind of input from students is essential because it is unfiltered through the eyes of any adults who interact with the students.”