This letter is in response to a June 7 article “RBHS student-administrator session fizzles.” I want to congratulate the high school administrators for the effort; what a good idea. I share your “frustration” that more students didn’t come. The event sounds like such a good civic experience/lesson for young people.
If you plan to try again, I hope you explore your own ideas about why this event wasn’t better attended. Do you suppose it might have been the time of year? That it needed more advanced notice? That it might help to have some of the students (like the ones who came whom you thought were already informed) work with you to plan the promotion? I wonder how the students would have responded to such a collaborative effort.
It makes sense to me to have students submit questions in advance. The teacher in me would have loved the chance to incorporate the task in an English or civics/social studies class or at student government meeting, or even the through school paper’s student staff. Any drama or theater group could design a skit or role-play around the topic to stimulate interest.
Since participating in a town meeting may be really new for our young people today, I highly recommend adding a period for questions from the audience. Even if the ground rules establish the possibility that questions would be collected for the planning of a follow-up or future “student/administration town meeting,” the opportunity to hear what stimulated or interested the students most could help with planning such a meeting.
It sounds to me as if you are on the right track. Don’t be disappointed that the first effort wasn’t what you hoped for. That is how we learn.
Sandra Baumgardner
Brookfield
