Listening to the school board meeting as an observer was different from a student because I did

not realize that this many people cared about the success of my classmates and I. As a student, I thought

that only the teachers and principal were concerned with our performance. Many of the people who

spoke are very interested and passionate about how to help students in their academic careers. There

was a lot of talk about students who were struggling and how to provide them the tools needed to be

successful. I always thought there was more of a focus on the kids who were standard, or in the general

education classroom. I was also surprised that there was talk about social and emotional learning. This

was not in place when I went to grade school or high school, so I am used to teachers caring about

academics. Now there is academic and personal learning which I think is wonderful. Some students may

come from families who do not teach them these skills, which leaves it up to the school to introduce

these skills to the student.

I thought the most interesting part of the meeting was having the kids on the Student Council

Board come in and talk about what they were doing at the high school. They explained red ribbon week,

valentine day activities, fundraisers for the school, food drives, and spirit week. I also thought the

speaker who spoke about weekly check up on students did a very good job of providing an overview of

what is happening in local classrooms. I think that it is important to have representatives come and talk

to the educational board. The board makes the final decisions, but these students actually attend the

schools. They know the environment and what needs to be improved. It also gives the students a sense

of responsibility and leadership. I was on student council in grade school and it gave me a sense of pride

in myself.

There was talk about how the school operates on a local level. They discussed improving the

local parks but that was not their main focus. Their main focus was on improving the quality of

academics in the classrooms. Although I believe it is important to focus on projects such as improving

playgrounds and the community, I believe academics should come first. They had a powerpoint
explaining what the possible future construction would look like which I liked because it showed they

had intentions on actually completing the project.

One example of how the school fits into the community is the board discussed how to measure

students' understanding of social and emotional learning. They made it a point that these skills are used

inside and outside of the classroom. Right now, teachers do not have a way to measure how well

students understand the social and emotional learning lessons. They discussed how to create a

measurement so they can be sure students are grasping the idea to make the community better as a

whole.