Student reps talk safety, events at KC board meeting
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MILL HALL -- School safety is a top priority for students at Central Mountain High School.
That was the key focus, student representative Claire Bowman told the Keystone Central School District Board of Directors during its voting session on Thursday night.
Bowman, a junior at CMHS, was one of many who provided an update regarding the student government initiatives taking place in the district's secondary schools.
"Our first, honest conversation must be about the safety of our school," Bowman said. "Many students, teachers and parents have explicitly mentioned concerns about safety in the building -- from going to the bathroom, to safely eating one's lunch or just walking the halls."
Bowman said altercations "keep escalating," noting in recent weeks there have been "a multitude of altercations in the building."
"We feel no student should walk into school feeling unsafe or that they have to watch their backs," she said.
Bowman noted banning cell phones is not the solution to these issues and encouraged the board to look into other options.
"School should inspire learning, not fear," she said.
Bowman encouraged board members to come to CMHS and walk its halls and speak to people.
"Talk with students, talk with teachers and find out first hand what is going on in our building," Bowman said. "We feel it is very valuable to our student body to know who you are and how you and your votes directly affect us."
"We hope that through open communication, the decisions that you make continue to create a lasting, positive experience for all of us and our community," Bowman concluded.
Student safety at CMHS has been a topic of discussion since a student came to the board in February 2023. The situation drew more public attention when a female student allegedly severely beat another student in March.
Since then, the board has taken steps to implement new safety measures including an update to the district's cell phone policy and the potential installation of devices in restrooms -- where the majority of instances occur - that would help monitor the area while not violating students', teachers' and staffs' privacy.
The board also heard an update on the student governments' activities at CMHS from Junior Jonas Maddle.
"At our last Student Government meeting we revised some of our most pressing matters such as making new specifications about our speaker, giving a name to our voting body, determining how many representatives we will have from each grade and how we will handle if a member quits or gets into disciplinary actions," Jonas said.
Jonas said members of the Student Government were going to Harrisburg on Friday to tour the Capitol Building with representatives of State Senator Cris Dush's office. Following the tour, Jonas said students would visit the State Museum of Pennsylvania.
"We are excited to personally see the Capitol and meet our local senator's staff," he said.
In school-wide news, Jonas told the board many student activities ranging from winter sports, Drama Club auditions and much more were taking place at CMHS.
"We have a holiday celebration and spirit week planned building-wide on the last week before we begin our Christmas and New Year's break," he said.
Bucktail student representative Martin Lewis was unable to attend Thursday's meeting due to an illness, so Principal James Poleto read Lewis's update on his behalf.
"Martin was really disappointed he couldn't come. He stopped yesterday to talk to me about it and then today emailed me and made sure everything was taken care of," Poleto said.
Martin's update said student council held a Schoolwide Positive Behavior event at the end of the first quarter.
Students who demonstrated the five pillars of safety, responsibility, respect, kindness and professionalism, were given the option of several different activities to start the day. Then, students were treated to a winter sports pep rally at the end of the day.
Martin's update said student council intends to implement Fries on Friday "where students will be able to cash in their rewards points for chances on a raffle. Five students’ names will be drawn every Friday for a chance to win free fries from the cafeteria."
The Bucktail Yearbook Club will also be holding its annual Christmas auction soon.
"Every year, the yearbook club auctions off donated items to raise money for creating and purchasing yearbooks," Poleto read.
On Dec. 14, Bucktail will host its annual Christmas concert and feature instrumental performances from its 12-person high school band and over 40-person elementary school band.
Lewis's update also acknowledged something new in Bucktail's cafeteria.
"New to the Bucktail cafeteria this month is a wrap station," Poleto read. "When student government was first brainstorming issues... one that first came to mind was the school lunches."
Lewis's update said, with the help of Poleto and food services, a wrap station was created and implemented this week.
The board also heard an update from Central Mountain Middle School Principal Dave Romanyshyn about how they're implementing a student government.
Romanyshyn told the board CMMS is at the beginning stages of forming its own government.
"Mrs. (Victoria) Welch, one of our eighth grade math teachers, and I are working on criteria and what it will look like in the middle school," he said.
Romanyshyn said the school has an existing structure of student groups that prepare for dances and other activities, but none that are a government body.
"We communicated with the teachers and told them what we were looking for... being on the high honor roll, having few if any behavior issues in the past, students who show leadership qualities and are generally considered role models for other students," he said.
Teachers provided a list of students to Romanyshyn and Welch, who interviewed each student on Thursday.
"(We) asked them questions, making sure that they're interested and letting them know what they're in for," he said. "We're at the point where we are about to select our four students and have our first meeting at our December Club Day coming up in two weeks," he said.
Romanyshyn said he hopes to have an update for the board in January or February at the latest.
Following the presentations, Superintendent Dr. Jacquelyn Martin spoke about the progress the student government program has made in a year.
"I will call this a Boardroom-to-Classroom initiative where we started with board policy - looking at the student government policy, the administrative regulations - and then working with the staff and the students at the secondary buildings to try and move forward to have some student representatives," Martin said.
Martin said some more finalizing steps need to be taken as well, such as what the role of a student government representative will look like at board meetings.
Board President James "Butch" Knauff suggested a subhead be added to the board's agenda updates.
"I think we can add another spot on (the agenda) after the superintendent's report for student representatives reports," he said. "Have them speak to what's going on in the schools."
"We definitely need to hear from them. I like the idea of maybe coming to student council meetings or something... let our faces be known," he concluded.