MANKATO — If you’ve been to a Mankato Area Public School Board meeting recently, you may have seen some new faces.
Those faces at the Tuesday board meeting were Vivian Collins and Corrigan McLaughlin, two of the five students selected to be student representatives for the board.
“It was a high priority for us to establish a program that led to having a regular student voice at the board table. … We have identified kids from (the district) who will, on a rotating basis, join the board,” Supt. Paul Peterson said.
This is the first year Mankato has had student representatives on its board.
A School Board member was introduced to the program during an annual Minnesota School Boards Association meeting and thought it was a good idea, Board Chair Shannon Sinning said.
The selected students — Collins, McLaughlin and Henry Smentek from West High School and Nolan Bleck and Rosemary Sullivan from East — don’t vote but are invited to sit at the table with board members during meetings and work sessions to provide input.
“It’s been great. It’s our second regular business meeting that they’ve been to. Vivian has been to one of the work sessions where we do the short business meeting and then we do a work session, and she provided some great input there,” Sinning said. “We get so bogged down in doing all the different capital projects … (that) we don’t get to actually hear from the students who we’re trying to make this the best experience they can have.”
For Collins and McLaughlin, it’s an opportunity for them to be advocates for themselves and their community.
“I am trying to be involved in my community more. I’d love to be involved in more of the policy side of things and advocate for questions I know a lot of students have about a lot of the things the School Board does,” McLaughlin said.
For Collins, being able to be an advocate, especially for neurodivergent students, is what drew her to the position.
“I have a personal vested interest in cognitive science, political science and education, and I personally feel that this is the most intersecting activity of my interests. I get to advocate for neurodivergent students like myself through the School Board,” Collins said. “I find community involvement to be incredibly important in every way shape and form. I believe this is something I’ll follow through for the entirety of my life.”
That advocacy will help guide the student representatives to share their voices on topics that are pressing to most high school students today, but may be unfamiliar to people who’ve been out of the education system for a while.
“I love how they want our input. They want to know what students (need) because they haven’t been in high school in many years. They don’t know how modern technology is affecting the regular student body. … They really want our voices and I feel heard,” Collins said.
The recent meeting marked McLaughlin’s first, where she was “sworn in” as a representative.
“It was very nerve-wracking going in. I was very nervous but I feel a lot more at ease. Now that I’ve actually done it once, I feel like I’ll be way more prepared next time,” she said.
MSBA Executive Director Kirk Schneidawind said that he’s not sure exactly how many school boards have a similar program, but estimates the number to be between 100 and 120 in Minnesota. According to the nonprofit’s respective school board pages, some of those districts that have student representatives include Minneapolis, South St. Paul and Owatonna High School.
“I think it also helps the board in the long run to understand the student perspective on a fundamental policy change or a bus route change or a daily schedule change so they can hear from the students who are actually there and it gives the board good feedback in their decision-making process about whether to move forward with the policy change or whatever piece that may be in front of them,” he said.
Student representatives were something the Minnesota Legislature briefly considered mandating in the 1990s, Schneidawind said, but that law was quickly reversed as districts had too many questions on exactly how the process would work. Today, he said, student representatives have become more popular post-COVID than they were before.
“I think in general there’s been more of an interest in gathering some student perspectives on policy decisions and funding decisions that some of our boards want to hear, and I think this is a great way for them to do that,” Schneidawind said.
With the overwhelming positive response, both from the students and the School Board side of things, Sinning said this is a program the board will look to continue into the future. The students this year already have taken to the role with ease, sharing their thoughts on policies and practices they’d most like to see addressed.
“I think for the first two years of high school that the late-work policy shouldn’t be a thing,” Collins said, noting the policy of a 10% reduction in score every day an assignment is late. “I understand the benefits, and I do support it; however, I feel like it really fuels that irresponsible time management from the beginning of our high school careers.”
“(I would) like more community spaces in the school, because as someone who has a lot of free time at the school because of the amount of online classes I’m doing, there’s not really anywhere I can go (and) sit and just do my work quietly,” McLaughlin said.