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Oak Park-River Forest High School board swears in student-delegate pilot
Summary
The Oak Park-River Forest High School Board of Education formally seated six student delegates as part of a new pilot program allowing juniors and seniors to sit at the board table as nonvoting participants and observers.
Oak Park–River Forest High School District 200 on Feb. 20 swore in six student delegates and launched a pilot program designed to incorporate student perspective into board deliberations.
The pilot will allow one junior or senior delegate to sit at the board table at each meeting, observe board business and contribute to dialogue, but not vote or participate in closed session. Juniors are expected to serve two-year terms; students do not count toward quorum or Open Meetings Act limits.
“After researching what other districts do, as well as what is allowed by Illinois state school code, we have developed a pilot program that we are excited to kick off here today,” Superintendent Dr. Johnson said as the board reopened public session. The board presented the oath of office to the students and administered it paragraph by paragraph.
The first delegates introduced and sworn in were Olive Tepper, Iris Keene, Gatre Gebbing, Mariam Butler, Isabelle Honenberg Reese and Leonidas Campbell. The board said each student will be paired with a board mentor and will be expected to attend all board meetings as observers.
The board described the program as experimental and said it will be assessed and reshaped as needed. “For continuity, juniors are expected to serve as delegates for 2 year terms,” Dr. Johnson said during the introduction.
The board emphasized program limits: student delegates will not vote, will not attend closed session and will be coached by assigned mentors. The district did not set a fixed end date for the pilot; the board said it will continue evaluating the program’s impact and make adjustments as needed.
The swearing-in and program-launch remarks were made in open session immediately after the board reconvened from closed session and were followed by student reports in the meeting’s introductory items.
The board did not take a formal vote to adopt the pilot program in this meeting; the seating and oath took place as the board described the program and introduced the first cohort.
