Student Reps: Engagement, Not ​“Culture War”

After prevailing in a competition with over 30 classmates vying to represent Hamden schools as student members of the Board of Education, 16-year-olds Ishnan Khan and Mark Hu said they plan to use their new platform to increase the presence of student voice in community decision-making and to set a higher standard for transparency and inclusion across the board.

Khan, a rising senior at Hamden High, and Hu, an upcoming junior, were chosen by Superintendent Jody Goeler from a pool of 35 candidates to serve on the town’s BOE as non-voting student representatives this coming school year.

Khan and Hu reflected that the unprecedentedly high number of applicants seeking the two public-service positions suggests a surge in student interest in the post — and in community engagement. 

Over coffee at Panera — Khan ordered a caramel latte plus whipped cream while Hu kept his black — the dynamic duo spoke about why establishing better communication and public inclusion in the district’s decision-making processes are their top aims.

Hu and Khan will join the board in the fall after having earned civic work experience: Khan is set to start a summer internship this week with Town Engineer Stephen White. Hu is currently working with State Rep. Sean Scanlon on his campaign to become the next state comptroller.

Khan is on track to earn an associate’s degree upon her high school graduation through the Hamden Engineering Career Academy. She’s also the co-president of the Asian American Society and a member of the Sandy Hook Promise Club, with hopes to one day be a municipal engineer.

Hu, who has worked with local politicians like Peter Cyr and Josh Elliott during their runs for office, is on the football team and looking towards law school.

Both are members of their class governments; Khan is the senior class secretary, Hu the junior treasurer.

They said they plan to use their budding career skills to ​“build up” rather than burn down a school system that has much to offer despite its budgetary limitations.

Khan and Hu both live in Hamden’s Spring Glen neighborhood. Hu has lived in Hamden since he was three; Khan immigrated with her family from Bangladesh when she was just 11-years-old.

“The community was super welcoming,” she recalled.

“They had to learn about me,” she said of her teachers and classmates, ​“and I had to learn from them.”

She was able to flourish in a new town, she said, because everyone in her classroom wanted to learn how to care for one another, even when apparent obstacles, like lack of a common language, made it difficult.

Rather than advocating to rid schools of student resource officers or metal detectors, she said, she’ll push to increase student resources, like mental health supports and cultural celebrations. She complimented her predecessor Mariam Khan — a student rep during Ishnan Khan’s freshman year who is now an elected voting member of the board — for successfully pushing to get Eid recognized as a holiday in Hamden schools.

Hu said he’ll be approaching the job through a political framework, understanding public education as an issue of social governance.

“I’ll be non-partisan. I’m not gonna bring a culture war,” he said. ​“I’ll be getting a lot more opinions from students and other members of the school. I’ll be making polls.”

Many students want to participate in deciding the educational policies that will impact their daily life, the reps said. The number of students interested in serving on the BOE this year, they said, demonstrates that interest. 

After a hard few years of school — featuring remote learning, the implementation of metal detectors in the high school, and heightened psychological distress among youth populations — students have thoughts on how their educations could be improved. But it’s not always easy for students to get involved in the process of making things better.

Khan and Hu gave a recent example where they thought communication between the BOE and community was lacking: The majority of their classmates were unaware that Hamden had been searching for a new superintendent up until a few weeks ago. Though the BOE brought in consultants to compile student feedback to guide the hiring process, fewer than 30 students responded to a distributed survey. The consultants held focus groups, which no students attended — Khan pointed out that those in-person public input sessions conflicted with many student activities that prohibited high schoolers from joining in the conversation.

Khan and Hu said using more virtual platforms — including Google Classroom — would make participation more accessible. Opportunities to participate in local debates, they said, could be shared via morning intercom announcements.

Student input will be especially key, both noted, beginning this year and moving forward, because the school district is currently facing a potential fiscal cliff that may mean budget cuts.

The two highlighted some projects that they have already identified around the high school – like broken ceiling tiles and aging sports equipment. But they agreed that student opinion should drive where available funds are allocated if there’s not enough money to address every issue.

They said that Hamden schools’ best quality – a sense of open and inclusive community – is the result of a diverse school system where everyone has to come together to solve problems beyond themselves.

In other wealthier and whiter districts, Hu argued, where student athletic teams have state of the art equipment and kids eat gourmet lunches each day, he senses there is more competition and entitlement over collaboration, resolve and kindness.

Perhaps the reason that Hamden is a relatively united community, Khan continued, is because of the way its residents, youth included, are motivated to come together through instances of financial hardship in order to thrive and, in some cases, survive.

For example, Khan works with Hamden youth services, a municipal entity that operates separately from the BOE, to distribute meals and groceries to residents and students on a regular basis.

In moments like those, Khan said, you ​“get to see everyone working together. You sense the community.”

In other words, Khan proposed, the idea is not simply to eliminate problems. ​“There’s conflict everywhere,” she reflected. If Hamden schools focus on mutual aid and collective care, she suggested, change and joy will remain abundant.

Hu concluded: ​“Everything comes down to how engaged people are.”