The year is now halfway over, and the IHS student representatives to the Board of Education (BoE) are involved in several discussions and initiatives across a wide range of topics. They have continued meeting with Principal Jason Trumble bi-weekly and have attended seven monthly BoE voting meetings thus far. Additionally, they have been present and spoken at two curriculum meetings on November 28 and December 19.
The recycling initiative reported on in the last issue has come to fruition. IHS has implemented a pilot program with six large recycling bins spread throughout the building. Labels illustrating the varieties of plastic approved for recycling are posted on both the bins and the nearby walls. The BoE student representatives hope to soon have plastic lids for these containers and are working with Scot Taylor and Daniel Breiman to make this happen.
Secondly, the student representatives have been engaged in conversations about standards based grading. After speaking on the subject at the December 19 curriculum meeting, the representatives organized and attended a meeting with BoE member Adam Krantweiss, where they shared their perspectives on the shift to standards based grading at the middle schools and the introduction of such practices to some high school classes. The student representatives hope to continue to engage in productive dialogues with the administration and the BoE about grading policies.
The student representatives have also been engaged in conversations with Trumble about building security over the last month. They recognize the concerns around safety but have posed questions about the necessity of locking the entire wall of doors which limits access to the main building. However, it has become clear that unlocking more doors will, in all likelihood, not be possible because it would require the purchase of more keypads and their wiring to respective doors. In more positive news, a recent meeting with IHS administrator Martha Hardesty provided hope for at least unlocking more of the doors on the inside of the quad, which open into several corridors of G, H, and C-buildings.
Lastly, the student representatives would like to issue an apology and an edit of their previous update in The Tattler. With regards to the current recycling initiative, a flawed poster design was printed, which listed #3 plastics as recyclable instead of #2. Next to this article is a picture of the corrected poster. The student representatives hope to continue to keep the school updated on their activities through The Tattler. Any thoughts or concerns about ongoing or potential projects/concerns can be sent to the student representatives at their respective emails, which are listed below.
Lucine Barseghyan: lb30@icsd.k12.ny.us
Claire Park: cp14@icsd.k12.ny.us
Mukund Gaur: mg23@icsd.k12.ny.us
Caedmon Sethupathy: cs11@icsd.k12.ny.us