During Tuesday’s board of education meeting in Montgomery County, Maryland, members of the public were admonished twice after booing and mocking videotaped public comments on the mask policy.
Recently, Richard Montgomery High School student Hana O’Looney was subjected to similar behavior as the board’s student member received online harassment that her adult colleagues called “vile.”
“Being a student board member now or SMOB [Student Member of the Board] now is difficult,” O’Looney said. Each student board member serves for one year, so “Whoever takes the reins after me at a time when public discourse about politics has become really ugly.”
However, despite what she has experienced, O’Looney encourages other students to serve on their local boards.
In an interview with WTOP, O’Looney said it’s a privilege to serve on a school board. “But that also means it comes with the responsibility of being held accountable to the public, just the same as any other board member,” she said.
She’s adamant that students should have the same kind of voting powers she does. Other student board members have said in the past — a statement O’Looney said she agrees with — is “Decisions should not be made about us without us.”
As the Montgomery County student board member, she can vote on all but “negative personnel actions,” according to the Montgomery County Public Schools’ website.
O’Looney supports a bill at the Maryland General Assembly designed to give expanded voting rights to student school board members across the state. It was recently the subject of a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee on March 3.
O’Looney said that it makes sense for students to have a say in decisions made on local school boards, especially as school systems emerge from the pandemic.
“None of these education officials — though they do try their best and they work really hard — have been in a Zoom classroom,” she said.
One of the things that O’Looney has stressed during her tenure as a board member is visiting schools and engaging students who ordinarily might not pay attention to the school board’s work.
Instead of focusing on hearing from student groups at organized student government events, said O’Looney, she’s worked to visit as many schools as possible. So far this year, she’s been to 60 schools and tries to talk to a broad swath of student populations, even going to the cafeteria and having lunch with them.
“I’m really interested in speaking to students who aren’t involved in clubs and who aren’t the presidents of the student government and who aren’t the captains of the football team,” O’Looney said.
Another reason why giving students voting authority on their school boards matters, O’Looney said, is it causes all of their students to be more active participants in their education.
“I also suspect that the levels of civic engagement from our students that have gone through Montgomery County Public Schools will be higher because they have this experience of voting in a democratic election at a younger age,” she said.
