‘Parents are putting words in students’ mouths’: Placer County students left out of decisions
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Seventeen-year-old Anna Fishburn is mature beyond her years. She expertly balances schoolwork and extracurricular activities; she chooses her words carefully; she prioritizes diplomacy above her personal views as Whitney High School student body president, and she speaks out when she needs to.
As a student trustee in the Rocklin Unified School District, Fishburn is required to attend five school board meetings this academic year, sitting among RUSD leaders and elected officials and facing members of the public. Her first meeting of the year was a disorderly, five-and-a-half-hour circus on Sept. 1.
Although Fishburn did everything she could to prepare herself for the meeting, she left feeling shocked.
“Parents are putting words in students’ mouths,” Fishburn said. “It’s really difficult to hear parents and members of the community say, ‘This is how the students feel,’ when, in reality, they’re not a student. When I’m sitting up there, I represent students of the entire district. How do we feel about masking? Well, you never asked.”
Fishburn said Rocklin Unified officials rarely engage with students on the most important issues affecting their daily lives. Prioritizing student needs has never been more important, yet Fishburn believes that school board members and administrators are not listening to the young people they’re responsible for educating.
But it’s not just Rocklin. Increasingly riotous school board meetings are taking place across the country, full of impassioned parents and community members claiming to know what’s best for students.
In Roseville, Antelope High School student body president Kaliah Munoz said that when she speaks up, her views are completely ignored. Ultimately, Munoz feels like students are being left out of conversations that directly affect them.
“I definitely felt like my concerns or points of view are not taken into as serious consideration as that of parents,” Munoz said.
In June, all five Rocklin Unified school board members sent a letter to state health officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom urging the state to immediately lift its classroom mask mandate. Roseville Joint Union High School District also signed the letter. But both Fishburn and Munoz said that, in general, most students in their districts agree with masking policies.
“If wearing a mask means I can have a homecoming dance outside, I really don’t care,” Fishburn said. “If (wearing a mask) means I can have a high school experience, it’s not that big of a deal.”
Notably, Fishburn is the only female student trustee in the district, and she’s also one of only two student trustees of color. That means when Fishburn sits in on school board meetings, she brings a critical perspective that wouldn’t otherwise be represented.
Both student body presidents said they believe that school board members and district administrators care about students but don’t go out of their way to involve them in important discussions.
Students aren’t considered in critical decisions, yet they’re constantly being used as symbols for someone else’s agenda.
“It doesn’t feel very proactive, it feels very reactive,” Fishburn said.
Both Fishburn and Munoz have taken it upon themselves to contact district leaders. But these 17-year-olds — representing thousands of students, balancing full-time school work and extracurriculars during college application season and trying to make the most of their senior years — shouldn’t have to add one more thing to their plate.
Every year, a few members of the board give presentations about topics like budgets and campus culture to Rocklin leadership classes. But to the students, these meetings fall short because they are not interactive. Board members talk at students instead of with them and don’t take the time to get to know the students listening to their briefings.
“It’s important to know who they are before having a relationship with us,” Fishburn said. “And there’s no relationship unless they come in and introduce themselves.”
Last week, Fishburn and Rocklin High School student body co-president Ryan Miller met with RUSD school board members Julie Hupp and Tiffany Saathoff. They discussed modernizing the district dress code and talked about how the school board can be more engaged with students.
Meetings like this, where student leaders get to discuss the issues their peers are most concerned with and affected by, ensure that student voices are helping shape school district policies. These meetings prove that real communication with students is possible, if all too rare.
“Everyone wishes students could speak out all the time, but it’s important for people to know that I’m a 17-year-old girl sitting next to middle-aged men and women,” Fishburn said. “It’s not an easy thing and it’s very intimidating. So I’m really fortunate that the student body has entrusted me with representing them.”