Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, welcome to House Education Tuesday, April 14. Within the committee, we have looked at a bill talking about expanding student representation on school boards. That did not make crossover. However, this issue may come back up again when we get a miscellaneous ed bill back from the Senate, be an opportunity to sort of look and see if there's anything in statute we may wanna look at. I thought it would just be good to take advantage of the fact that we are now on our way to being full fledged members of ECS and bring them in to provide a little bit of context from a national level, what exists out there in state law concerning students on school boards. Anyway, I'm gonna turn it over to our witness to introduce herself, and looking forward to your testimony.

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: Thank you so much. Good afternoon. Chair Conlon, Vice Chair Quimby, members of the committee. My name is Hina Kuayama, and I'm a policy analyst at Education Commission of the States. ECS provided a written testimony on state policies regarding student members on school boards, and today I'm here to walk through some of that information. I'll name a number of states as examples of different policy approaches, and citations for each of these examples are listed and linked within that written testimony document if you'd like to reference them later on.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Great, thank you.

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: Sure. There are several states with policies that either allow for or require for school boards to include student representation, but the specifics of these policies do vary from state to state in some key ways, including whether the inclusion of a student member is mandated statewide, the number of students included on school boards, the process for selecting student members, and student board member voting rights, and other rights such as attending executive sessions. So first is whether states include student members as a requirement statewide or just allow it. We have some states like Massachusetts and New Hampshire where every school board is required to include at least one student member. Examples of states that have permissive language include Illinois and Nebraska, where school boards are allowed to include student members, but it is not a statewide mandate. In California, the inclusion of a student member is required only if the students of a district petition for the governing board to appoint one or more student members. States also differ in how many student members they require to be included on local school boards. So many of the policies that we looked at used language like one or more or at least one when they referred to student members, leaving the exact number to be determined locally. Examples of states with this type of language include California, Nebraska, and New York. On the other hand, New Hampshire requires the board to have one student from each public high school district that the board oversees. So the number of student members on the board would be the same as the number of public high schools within the district. Another state that has a similar policy is Maryland, though I will note that in Maryland, the policies vary slightly from county to county. So when I mention Maryland examples, you'll hear me name specific counties. A county in Maryland that does have a similar policy where the board must have one student from each public high school is Worcester County. So that's a policy to look at for that. The third way that these policies can differ is selecting students. So the process for selecting student members in most states involves some form of a student body vote, but the specifics still do vary a little. For example, New York statute provides a list of possible student roles or ways that a student can be selected to be on, the board. So in New York districts, each board can choose if the student member is the student president, a student otherwise elected by the student body, a student selected by the student government, a student selected by the principal, a student selected by the superintendent, or a student selected by a majority vote of the board. Nebraska has a similar policy with a shorter list of possible students who may serve. Other states are a little more specific in terms of how the elections happen or how students are chosen. For example, Massachusetts outlines that the student body must elect a student committee, and that student committee must elect a single chair who serves as representative to the school committee. Other states are a little more flexible. So, for example, Virginia has a policy that allows local boards to decide the manner in which that student is chosen, and there's no specific guardrails or guidelines in place as to how that needs to go. And last but not least, state policies differ in terms of the rights that student board members are given. As I mentioned earlier, in general, these policies tend to address a student member's right to attend executive sessions or closed sessions and a student member's right to vote. So for the right to attend executive sessions, some states like Illinois and Nebraska expressly prohibit it. It's required that student members are excluded from executive sessions in every local board across the state. Other states like Virginia allow the board to choose to include or exclude a student from executive sessions. And in Maryland, though, like I mentioned, it varies by county, some counties do allow students to attend. So, for example, Montgomery County in Maryland, the board must allow student member to attend all executive sessions except those related to the suspension or dismissal of school employees. And even that has an exception if the majority of the board votes to invite the student to attend those sessions as well, the student may attend. And finally, state policies regarding student board member voting rights. In the majority of the states we looked at, students serve as nonvoting members, but there are a few exceptions. Again, in several Maryland counties, students have full voting rights with just a few exceptions that are based on the content that the board is discussing. So, for example, in a lot of these counties, students may vote on or student members may vote on everything except issues around personnel, budgets, school closings and reopenings, collective bargaining, and school discipline. Some examples of specific county policies that do provide students with full voting rights are Baltimore, Harford, Howard, and Montgomery Counties in Maryland. And a different type of voting right exists in California for student board members. They have preferential voting rights, meaning that they can provide a formal expression of opinion, and it's recorded and cast before the official governing board vote. But they don't have a vote with decision making power on the board. Most other states, as I mentioned, don't provide student members with any voting power at all. Thank you so much for your time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thanks. There may be some questions. I have one. Do know how in Maryland they sort of where or any of these places where students are allowed to vote, whether it be limited or on anything, how they sort of get around the constitutional challenge that they weren't elected, and yet they are voting?

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: That's a great question. I'm not sure that didn't come up in our initial research, but I am happy to look into it and get whatever information we can find to Matt after we're done today. I believe the only state where they do have full decision making voting power is Maryland. So that would be the place to focus on for that question. But I will get back to you with more information.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Great. And it seems like these are all high school students. Would that

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: be Yes, these are all high school students. Some states do have requirements around the exact grade level. It's a little less common. So some states do require them to be a junior or senior, but the majority of these statutes just require that it is a student attending a public high school.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Other questions around the community? Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: Have a question. Go ahead. As you look through and go through the states and just kind of look at the representation on some of these school boards, have you or did you look into any trends that may suggest that doing it a particular way increases student participation, whether it be on the board or just kind of in a civic manner?

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: I know there's been some research around the impacts of these policies on civic participation. On the written testimony, I did link to some ongoing research from Teachers College at Columbia University that is related to the impacts of student representation. We do not, I should say I do not off the top of my head have the results, but the findings are linked in that document. It is ongoing research. Just as a disclaimer, it's not entirely complete, so there's not, a full study in there yet, but they are releasing data as they find it, I believe.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: And that's under the research project hyperlink that you have there in the first paragraph? Is that

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: Yes. Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you. I was looking at Virginia, and they just basically say school boards can adopt procedures for the appointment of a student representative, which made me wonder, there any states that forbid it?

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: Not that we identified in our search. We didn't find any that expressly prohibited it, but some states do in statute have clear requirements around being 18 years or older and being able to vote in a state in order to serve on the board. And so if they don't also provide for a student member, sometimes that's interpreted to exclude students from potential membership on the board. There are also several states, though, that in practice have student members on local boards in some places, and it's just not addressed in statute. It's not expressly allowed or prohibited.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I suspect Vermont falls into that category. It's just sort of done on a district by district basis. Anybody else? All right, well, you very much for taking some time and doing this research for us and providing all the links to these, which is very helpful.

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: Of course. Thank you so much for having me, and I will look into your question on constitutionality of students voting without being elected, and I will get back to you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That'd be great. Thank you.

[Hina Kuayama, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the States]: Thank you. All right. Thank you so much.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So we can all sort of think about this. If you look at the bill that we had presented to us earlier, it didn't quite necessarily fit the Vermont context. We've got school boards that oversee no schools. We've got school boards that don't oversee high schools. So anyway, just we're thinking about how we might move ahead if it comes back our way. It could be just a model policy that we have the agency develop in connection with the school board association, One may already exist. I don't know.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: Bringing the student on be considered, like, an appointment. I think about when we lost a board member or came together, we voted to to bring someone in, but that was just the board vote. But the board votes for, yes, we're going to allow students or whatever that might be. Would that kind of circumvent that constitutional question that

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: we have? It all boils down to whether that they're a a voting member. So if they're not a voting member, they're just sort of there in an advisory role. You don't have that constitutional issue.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Do recall that Beth advised that if it was an appointed member, I didn't totally follow her logic because I'm not a lawyer, but if it was an appointed member, was like, this is how you would avoid that constitutional challenge, so maybe it had something to do with that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, and that's a power given to school boards and statute to appoint until the next election. But then they got to be elected. Great. Well, we are off until when, Matt?

[Matt (Committee Staff)]: Until Wednesday, August, if it's available.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Unlikely to be before three, but please keep an eye on your phones for a text message. We can start earlier. Will try