Green Schools
by the Beaverton Mayor's Youth Advisory Board (Beaverton, OR)

On a gray morning in October, teens from all over the Beaverton metro area flocked to the Beaverton City Library to let their voices be heard. They came to challenge the stereotype of apathy that plagues our generation. Students tackled issues such as converting all Beaverton School District High Schools into Green Schools, student rights, and school funding. Throughout the morning, students were able to participate in discussions and affect positive change in their own community. They also had the opportunity to be enlightened by other student’s views at the same time.

One of the first sessions was presented by Sue Shade on behalf of the Oregon Green School Association which tried to encourage students to take action in their high schools and convert them to green schools. Although some students did not get fired up about the topic, one student did and criticized Southridge’s Dim Day program. Andrey Voloshinov said that “even though saving energy is a positive, we are wasting paper by printing the Dim Day certificates; the light bulb costume is a distraction and takes away from the learning atmosphere.” The concept may be a good one, but that is up for debate. After Sue Shade’s presentation, students will try to take her ideas back to their respective high schools and implement the environmental attitude and mindset that she emphasized in the session.

Priscilla Turner, the Chair of the Beaverton School District, presented the next session on School Funding, the topic proved to be heated when students debated about the pros and cons of magnet academies. The focus of the session seemed to revolve around the bond and the debate between traditional public high schools like Westview and magnet school like ACMA. Many students felt that the bond only focused on expanding the magnet schools and building new magnet schools like the new Medical Magnet School. These new magnet academies would provide an environment for students who were not succeeding in a traditional high school, but would only slightly decrease the overcrowding that occurs at Westview, which has 2700 students, and other schools around the district. The bond would expand classes at Southridge and give almost all teachers a room of their own, and assist Sunset in some renovations. Is it right to neglect classrooms without enough desks at Westview to build a Medical Magnet school that would only benefit a select group of students? How will the school board address the common good?

One of the most entertaining sessions was the one on student rights by Robert Stafford, a teacher at Westview High School. Nadia Khoja, a Southridge Senior, enjoyed it because the session was “entertaining and informational at the same time, and gave me a chance to learn, but also to speak up for what I thought was right.” Mr. Stafford brought up several recent student rights cases on topics like Myspace and the 4th amendment.

Students were very receptive to Mr. Stafford’s style because he did not lecture or preach, but informed participants using humor and knowledge of the law. Regarding the 1st Amendment and freedom of speech, Mr. Stafford spoke on the boundaries that schools can have in enforcing it, if a student tries to petition in a distracting manner, or the wrong place/time, the school has a say. Students were impressed by his knowledge of student rights and began to understand the reasons that many of our schools enforce the rules that they do.

Halah Ilias stated how proud she was of the Beaverton students that decided to sacrifice their Saturday Morning to better the community, “They show commitment at a level in which everyone should admire.” As Key Note Speaker Ryan Deckert pointed out in the opening, students are committed and passionate about what they are involved in and are willing to put forth extra effort in order to succeed. Apathy will not describe our generation if students take matters that are important to them into their own hands and act on them, as participants in the Youth Summit did in October.

> For more on the Beaverton MYAB, visit: http://home.teleport.com/~ajmal/myab/index.html