Student Representatives to the Board of Education Update

The student representatives to the Board of Education (BoE) are a group of four students elected each year by the IHS student body to represent their interests at board meetings and relay pertinent information back to the school.

 The student representatives have finally started their recycling project after receiving the promotional video from Jonathan Shyne’s hardworking technology students. The video has, by the time of publication, been shared throughout the school in every third period class. Ideally, the video will also be sent home to families in short order. For the rest of the school year (and ideally next year as well), any uncontaminated paper and/or paper products can be placed in the small green or blue recycling buckets present in each classroom. Non-paper products cannot be recycled at this time.

 Some of the most recent BoE discussions have surrounded hot-button topics like a potential cell-phone ban and the Ithaca Teachers’ Association’s (ITA) contract renewal. While the student representatives have generally not publicly declared opinions on these topics, they are more than happy to provide information and discuss district current events with any interested students or teachers.

By the time of publication, a special facilities meeting on the vaping crisis will have been conducted, examining its prevalence and threat to student health. Vaping has become a serious concern for both IHS and the middle schools, demanding immediate attention. This issue is of particular concern after a student clogged another IHS toilet with a vape last month.

 Lastly, the student representatives have continued to provide school updates to the BoE, but they are eager to receive student suggestions. Any IHS student should feel free to contact them with information about an athletic, artistic, or academic accomplishment which they would like to be recognized.

 If the reader would like to meet with the student representatives during lunch or after school to discuss any policy concern, or to share thoughts about any ongoing project, they should feel free to reach out via email at the addresses provided below.

Caedmon Sethupathy ’25: cs11@icsd.k12.ny.us

Claire Park ’25: cp14@icsd.k12.ny.us

Jingying Xu ’27: jx1@icsd.k12.ny.us

Georgina Malikopoulou ’25: gm1@icsd.k12.ny.us