Vancouver students to help shape hiring, policy through high- and middle-school advisories

Brian Matheson, the district’s high school student-advisory lead, told the Vancouver School District Board of Directors on Sept. 16 that the high school advisory completed its fourth year and will continue meeting this year to provide student input on district policy and priorities.

Matheson said, “So this is the fourth year of Vancouver Public Schools running a high school advisory. In the past school year, the 20 four-twenty 5 school year, we had 44 students representing our comprehensive as well as our tailored learning options. And, the advisory met 10 times over the scope of the year.” He said the advisory also planned a student summit held at Washington State University Vancouver in May.

The advisory’s agenda this year will include listening sessions with the new superintendent candidate, input on the district’s cell-phone policy and student perspectives on budget choices. Matheson said students will meet from about 4:30 to 6 p.m., rotate among comprehensive schools and lead tours when visiting other buildings.

Bill Omen, who leads the district’s middle-school advisory, described a separate program that principals staff by selecting four students from each middle school. Omen said the middle-school advisory meets six times a year and “really focus[es] on creating that community across all of our middle schools, that voice and feedback on hot topics.” He said last year’s topics included the district cell-phone policy, electives, world-language offerings and furniture and space in schools.

Both presenters said student advisories will provide student representation for district-level decisions this year. Matheson noted that high-school students will participate in a listening session for the superintendent search later in the week and that advisories will solicit input on budget tradeoffs aligned to what matters to students.

At the middle-school advisory, Omen said the group will devote time at Geyser (a unified-model school) to discuss unified programming; he mentioned principal Delgadillo by name as a contact for that work. Both Matheson and Omen identified the advisories as part of the district’s strategic goals around belonging and student-centered experience.

Board members asked no substantive policy questions during the advisories presentation and the board moved on to other agenda items after the update.

The district distributed a scope-and-sequence document for the advisories and holds a high-school “belonging” score as one metric tied to the work, according to Matheson.