By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net & Maya Betti, News Intern
Northfield is one of the first communities in the United States to launch a program to include youth in local government. 10 years ago, youth served on two boards in the community; now over 130+ students serve on 36 community boards, including the City of Northfield’s Mayor’s Youth Council, along with the city’s Boards and Commissions, the School District’s Youth Council, and several non-profit boards.
Northfield High School student Annika Reister is one of the co-chairs of the school District’s Youth Council:
“So we try to foster a bigger connection between, the student body and the school board. And so we do polls and other activities to get the students voice heard by the school board. And then we have a representative go to every school board meeting.” – Annika Reister, Co-Chair of the District Youth Council on the KYMN Morning Show
Reister cited the example of the School District’s budget reductions as one example of how the District Youth Council was involved in engaging with the student body:
“The latest thing was probably the budget cut forum. We held two forums about that and we invited school board members and Doctor Hillman to attend and we had a great turn out of students who came and listened to them talk about like, what the future of the budget cuts was and we also had time for questions.” – Annika Reister, Co-Chair of the District Youth Council on the KYMN Morning Show
Another example of the youth on boards at work was last week when the Mayor’s Youth Council presented a recommendation for a rules change for the Public Comments section of City Council meetings. The City Council ultimately adopted the rules change.
Applications for next year’s boards are now open and close at the end of Friday. Applications are open for any current 9th, 10th or 11th graders.
You can apply to be part of the program here
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