Teens tackle youth issues

MAT-SU -- While the school board settles policy and tends to the concerns of parents, teachers and school administrators at its monthly meetings, Katelyn Baldwin, a junior at Colony High School, tends to the concerns of students. Baldwin is the student representative for the student advisory board, a student-run organization composed of two students from each of the Valley's middle schools and three students from each of the high schools. As the SAB's student representative, Baldwin attends all school board meetings and serves as a liaison between the board and students. She helps students understand the issues the school board deals with and helps the board understand the impact of those issues on students.

The SAB meets once each month to discuss issues, set goals and outline strategies for achieving those goals.

"Once you come together with that diverse group, you get a lot of input and you see what's really important. We work hard at those meetings and we actually get a lot done," Baldwin said.

One look at the SAB's efforts this year tells you she's right. At October's school board meeting, Baldwin outlined three issues the group had chosen to tackle this school year: regaining student access to Web-based e-mail accounts in schools; improving nutrition in school lunches; and rethinking the way the high-school qualifying exam is administered in local schools. Less than a month later, two of the three issues have been addressed and one -- the matter of student access to e-mail accounts -- is on its way to resolution.

"We're definitely not sitting ducks waiting for things to happen," Baldwin said.

The SAB began its efforts by meeting with Marie Burton, the school district's director of management information services, and local principals to discuss the school district's policy on e-mail access in schools. Burton told the students that several e-mail-related incidents in area schools prompted the restrictions.

"I couldn't figure out who had sent several different e-mails [to students] that were threatening and inappropriate," she said.

She said schools have no way to filter Hotmail and Yahoo accounts and that the district has an obligation to protect students from inappropriate material on the Internet.

"We don't want to be policing everything. But student safety is our number one concern," Burton said.

But Baldwin says the SAB wanted the school district to know that, though some students abused the privilege, many used e-mail accounts for legitimate academic purposes. Students could e-mail completed homework assignments or notes to themselves, for instance, if their printers at home weren't working. They could then open their e-mail accounts at school and print the material there.

"A lot of kids were unhappy about [the restrictions on e-mail]," she said.

Burton said the district had been using another e-mail provider, gaggle.net, for students enrolled in the cyberschool program, seeUonline. Gaggle filters out nudity and profanity; anything containing potentially inappropriate material goes to a folder for the teachers to review. Students throughout the district can now set up and access e-mail accounts in school through gaggle. Hotmail and Yahoo are still off-limits on school computers.

Burton says meeting with the SAB played an important role in changing the district's policy.

"It gave me the opportunity to hear the students' needs, and it allowed the students the opportunity to hear the concerns of the principals," she said. "[The students] stated their concerns nicely. They were very professional."

With that issue resolved, the SAB began tackling its next issue: improved nutrition in school lunches. While the other two issues may be more relevant to high school students, Katie Wieliczkiewicz, an eighth-grade SAB representative from Teeland Middle School, said this one tops the list of concerns among middle school students.

"We want to have healthier foods. We don't want to have to scrape off the grease to get to the real food," she said.

And, she says, students want better tasting food as well. She says students don't like the new South of the Border Express that replaced Taco Bell in local schools. Though Linda Stoll, the school district's nutrition services supervisor, says the new Mexican-express line uses the same meat, beans and cheese used by Taco Bell, Wieliczkiewicz says it's not the same.

"Kids just don't like it. It's not appetizing," she said.

Stoll says the students have asked her to meet with them Nov. 8. She says she'll listen to them and do whatever she can to address their concerns.

Baldwin says the SAB hasn't decided yet how it will resolve the students' third issue: the matter of rethinking the way the high school qualifying exam is administered. And she says she knows it won't be easy for the group to achieve all its goals. But she says it's important that the students take a proactive approach.

"We want to be at the table for discussion, so we can have our input before the final decisions are made," she said.