Students on School Board Want a Voice on Matters : Education: Two seniors seek to persuade Ventura district officials to give them the right to cast advisory votes on nearly all issues.

For nearly 20 years, Ventura school trustees have set aside time at every meeting to hear reports from student representatives about the latest academic and athletic achievements at the two local high schools.

The school district officially refers to the student reports as “good news.”

But now the student board members want to do more than just give good news.

They want to cast advisory votes.

Buena High School senior Jason Harris and Ventura High senior Mike Schodorf, the board’s student representatives, have asked school officials to give them and future student board members the right to voice their opinions and cast advisory votes on nearly all district issues.

The students have also requested that the district eventually allow student board members to introduce motions for board approval.

Most Ventura County school districts with high schools appoint a high school student to attend school board meetings.

But the Ventura Unified District would be one of the first in the county to give its student representatives the right to participate freely in board discussions.

The Simi Valley Unified School District last fall granted its student board member the chance to voice opinions on most issues brought before the panel.

And the Santa Paula Union High School District agreed in December to allow its student board member to both participate in board discussions and to introduce motions for trustees to consider.

Across the state, an increasing number of student representatives are demanding greater say in school board decisions, officials said.

“Fifteen years ago students were happy to have a representative to the board,” said Tom Parizo, a teacher at Channel Islands High School in Oxnard who is also a local representative to the California Assn. of Student Councils.

But now, he said, “students want to participate. They want to be treated like adults.”

In Ventura, Harris at Buena High said he learned about the trend when he attended a state conference of school board members in San Jose in December.

It makes sense to give students more of a voice about school board decisions, Harris said, because they have more direct experience with school issues. “We’re the ones in school every day,” he said.

Some Ventura school officials appear ready to give Harris, Schodorf and their successors the right to voice opinions on issues and cast advisory votes on issues except those related to personnel issues.

“Rather than just hearing their good news, they need to have a say,” board member Velma Lomax said.

But, for now at least, Lomax and other school officials are drawing the line at allowing students to bring motions before the board.

“I am very much in favor of having the kids enter into the discussion of anything where they have some background,” said Trustee Diane Harriman, a former high school teacher. But, she said, giving a student the power to make motions may be going too far.

“Board members are adults in the community who have been elected to do a job,” she said. “I don’t think we can turn that job over to kids.”

Harriman said she is particularly concerned that student board members may be pressured by their classmates to introduce controversial motions on issues such as dress codes or other issues important to students.

Supt. Joseph Spirito said he will recommend that the board first give students the opportunity to express their opinions to the board before allowing them to make motions.

“I don’t think we’re ready to jump that far and that fast,” he said.

The state has been allowing school boards to appoint students to their panels since 1976. But it was only in 1990 that the state gave school trustees the ability to allow student representatives to cast advisory votes.

And it is only since 1992 that school boards have had the right to give students the power to make motions.

So far, only about 50 of the 400 districts with high schools statewide have given the students the right to voice opinions on matters before the board. And only a handful of those have granted the young people the power to make motions, according to the student councils association.

The power to cast advisory votes would also encourage student representatives to become informed about issues and the opinions of their classmates, Harris said.

As it is, Harris and Schodorf say little or nothing after they give their good news reports at the school board meetings. And they usually leave early.

Furthermore, Harris said, “In the future, if we ever have a board that’s not concerned about the students, this will be a way to ensure that the students’ opinions are heard.”