Limiting Student School Board Members To Cheerleading Scripts Undermines Role’s Original Intent

In April 2002, Eddie Herrera, then a member of the Flagler County School Board, returned from the National School Board Association conference in New Orleans with what he thought was a fabulous idea: student board members. He was right. 

By summer, his colleagues had approved his motion to seat a student board member, and by fall Flagler Palm Coast High School’s Alex Silberman was the first to serve, with Elizabeth Hillaker as alternate. When Matanzas High School opened in 2005, representatives from the two schools alternated, then both sat at the dais together. 

They were not called “liaisons,” “representatives” or “delegates.” They were student board members. They could not vote, at least not bindingly–boards routinely include non-voting members–but they could participate in every other way. 

Some were more engaged than others, taking part in discussions as intended. Silberman was so concerned about diluting changes to graduation requirements that he asked to be seated on an internal panel rewriting student progression plan rules. Ryan McDermott in 2010 considered himself a full-fledged board member short of voting and actively filled his role in a way I don’t think anyone has since. Michael Manning in 2015 and Kobi Kane in 2017 directly affected policy–Manning ensured that a less punishing uniform policy was adopted, Kane through her board advocacy pushed Palm Coast government to accelerate its streetlights program after one of her classmates was killed walking in the L-section. 

Unfortunately over the years the majority of student board members have been relegated to mascots. They hardly say a word during meetings. Their contributions are segregated to the very end, when the chamber is empty. They praise teams, clubs or faculty members. All of it has its place. All of it can be done from the well of the chamber during the segment reserved for “spotlights” at the beginning of every meeting. They don’t have to be on the dais for it. What they do now is little more than canned PR and cheerleading. It might be good enough for their résumés and college applications, but it’s a role very different from the one the 2002 board intended, and from the role of student board members across the country.

In 2022, the National Association of State Boards of Education found that 24 state-level boards of education had student members, although 17 of them did not allow students to vote. In the District of Columbia and six states—California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington—the student board members held the power to vote on at least some issues. Personnel matters are typically excluded. In 2023 a group of former student board members formed the National Student Board Member Association to advocate for them and train new members. Cheerleading is not the focus of the job. 

Nor would it appear to be when student board members are selected to the Flagler board. FPC Principal Bobby Bossardet described it to me. It’s not easy to win the spot. Applications are open to incoming seniors. The applications include a writing prompt. They’re interviewed by a committee of administrators and faculty leadership who stress the importance of pluralist representation–“we pride ourselves on the diversity of the kids we serve,” Bossardet says of a school that would be Flagler County’s fourth-largest and most diverse city if it were its own government–and after their selection, they’re required to attend their School Advisory Council meetings and student leadership meetings. Do they have to vet what they say on the board through faculty or through Bossardet? “Absolutely not,” he says. “I don’t dictate their opinions.” 

The selection process seems to me more rigorous and discriminating than elections to the board. Some of the results make that obvious, considering that several of our current or former members wouldn’t stand a chance if they went through the FPC gauntlet. And yet once the student board members reach the dais they’re limited to reading scripts and showing off their school colors, belying the significance of their selection. 

The Flagler district never defined what its student board members’ role should be. Board member Lauren Ramirez–who as Board member Will Furry wishes she were limited to a student role, as he reminds her at every meeting–wants that definition formalized. She wants students to participate in meeting discussions and provide their insights to district initiatives and policy debates, especially when other board members can use it. Fellow board member Janie Ruddy agrees. Her daughter was an outspoken student board member during the Covid pandemic, not an easy time to be up there for either adults or students. Ramirez and Ruddy aren’t intimidated by student opinions. 

Furry and Christy Chong seem to be. They raise enough objections to start their own red herring fishery. Furry claims students who don’t sit in at workshops don’t have the data to speak intelligently, as if their opinions would be baseless and disruptive. That dismisses any member of the public who addresses the board at its meetings as well. The man who has shown nothing but contempt for the Sunshine Law fears the students would be subject to Sunshine Law complications, even though–while student board members do or should fall under the Sunshine Law–none exist. Chong, a master of hiding contempt behind fabricated concerns, fears student board members would be subjected to public scrutiny or criticism, as if peer-to-peer school environments aren’t more bruising than anything they may experience on the board.

Anyway we’re not talking about 6th graders. These are young adults. They can handle themselves–or Furry’s mansplaining–and the record shows that most of them could do so with more poise and intelligence than some board members past and present: the students have never been the circus acts. But Furry and Chong would rather student board members keep their mouths shut and stick to pom pom rhetoric.

The administration is drafting a new policy, and from what the superintendent tells me, it will lean closer to what Ramirez and Ruddy are looking for while ensuring that the students remain protected from the public nature of the responsibility. I’m not sure what that means, considering that in 24 years there’s never been anything to worry about regarding student board members. I hope the superintendent is not coating a poison pill to placate the fearful ones. 

Because unless the role is to be redefined off the dais as school liaisons who can cheer to their heart’s content at spotlight time, it’s time to let student board members live up to their title as intended when Herrera and his colleagues, among them Colleen Conklin and Jim Guines, created it. Furry in his reelection campaign has been trying to ride the coattails of Guines’s legend by nattering about honoring him on the board. Well, here’s his chance to revive something Guines championed instead of muzzling it. 

Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.

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