Guide to Speaking at JPS School Board Meetings for Students
By: Abigail Chow
As a growing generation that’s engaged in our various communities, something students may not know is that anyone has the right to speak at school board meetings. School board meetings are open to the public. Although it may not be widely advertised, if you check out the Jenks Public School Board of Education page, you’ll find information on your personal school board member, upcoming meeting dates/times, how to make a public comment or hearing of the public, and meeting minutes from the past year.
For those looking for a guide to speaking at a Jenks Public School Board meeting, this is just the article for you. I have divided this article into sections: School Board 101, Making a Public Comment vs a Public Hearing, Common Misunderstandings, How Student Voices Make an Impact, Tips for Speaking, Post Speaking, Building Relationships, and Advocacy, and “What’s Next.”
From left to right: Dr. Stacey Butterfield, Melissa Abdo, Ron Barber, Chuck Forbes, Tracy Kennedy, and Terry Keeling stand to recognize students.
School Board 101
There’s two different roles that a school board plays: accountability and community liaison. If you aren’t seeing an issue you care about (regarding policy) not being prioritized, this is the space to do so. This is the space to tell your story, experiences, and how you’re impacted by a particular policy.
“What they don’t know are the stories…experiences of students if they haven't talked to them…how many students are impacted by a particular policy or issue,” said Hannah Jarman, Program Manager for Tulsa Changemakers. “Those emotions and stories are really what starts to shift the needle, especially at the local level where we’re seeing: this is my community, these are the people who I care about, this is why I’m here. If we can build those relationships within our own communities and use public comment [or hearing of the public] as the doorway to open to those relationships, I think any type of change is possible from there.”
School Board meetings are open to the public. Anyone has the right to speak at school board meetings. The next school board meetings for the year will be held at 5 o’clock p.m. in the Education Service Center on:
October 10, 2022
November 14, 2022
December 12, 2022
If you want to speak at a school board meeting, there are two ways to do that: public comment and hearing of the public.
Making a Public Comment vs Public Hearing:
Public Comments
Public comments are when you want to speak about something that is listed on the agenda. That always happens at the beginning of the meeting. Make sure to arrive 10 or 15 minutes before the meeting starts, and there’s a book where you sign in for public comments.
Hearing of the Public
Hearing of the public is when you want to talk about something that’s not on the meeting agenda. To sign up, email the Clerk or Deputy Clerk of the Board, Julie Wortham, by 4 p.m. on the Wednesday before the scheduled School Board meeting and include the topic and the name of the speaker. Emailing the Clerk ahead of time allows them to publish the meeting agenda.
Common Misunderstandings
Operational vs. Policy Related
Something to keep in mind is that the school boards set policies and make sure they align with the state and federal laws based on the previous legislative session in the spring. A common misunderstanding that happens is that people contact the school board about a more operational issue than policy issue. In those cases, the school board suggests people reach out to the staff who’s closest to that problem whether it’s a teacher, principal, or admin. For example, if it’s something in the classroom, contact the teacher and then work up the chain.
“We always want to make sure that issues we have in the district are taken care of at the lowest possible level that we can,” said Julie Wortham, Deputy Clerk of the Board. “If a solution hasn’t come about, definitely move up that ladder because even following that process gives you more information as someone just coming in and needing to speak with the board because at each level you should get a little more information to help solve your problem.”
Scope of the Topic
Public comments or hearings of the public don’t just have to be complaints, concerns, or issues, they can also be positive feedback.
“I would say it doesn’t always have to be a complaint, it can also be about something you find particularly beneficial or helpful,” said Mellisa Abdo, President of the Board. “I think that’s equally as important as sharing when you have concerns and actually maybe that’s helpful in establishing a rapport that you want to be part of a solution moving forward.”
Conversations In and Outside of School Board Meetings
During School Board Meetings, when people make a public comment or hearing of the public, school board members can only say ‘thank you for sharing.’
“The conversations happen outside of the meeting because the meeting is very scripted by what’s on the agenda,” said Abdo. “We go line by line, so there’s not really an opportunity for discussing anything unless it says ‘discussion of this particular item.’”
Jenks Public School Board Members shake hands of students.
How Student Voices Make an Impact
As Program Manager for Tulsa Changemakers, Hannah Jarman works on programming to elevate youth voice in different sectors of Tulsa. Tulsa Changemakers’ vision is to make Tulsa a model city for youth driven impact whether it’s through neighborhoods, providing 45 different after school programs, to the civic sphere with Power of Youth, a crash course in civic advocacy for youth, to philanthropy with their Monroe Philanthropist program, to working on youth voice at the city council and the school board level, so that Tulsa gets that infrastructure of student youth-led voice being heard throughout.
“I believe that students are the most important stakeholders for the school board,” said Jarman. “We can make a lot of decisions, but the reality is that these decisions are ‘top down.’ We aren't actually listening to the experiences of the people who are impacted by those decisions every single day. I think it’s imperative that we have youth speaking as much as possible and communicating and having bi-direcitonal conversations with school board members as frequently as possible. Not just in public comment, but also how are school board members opening up space to have regular conversations with students? One of the greatest things I think is just getting youth together in a room because that’s where the magic happens,” said Jarman. “That’s where the experiences that they have actually come into play and we provide some tools, but the reality is that youth are the assets of the community and I think we should elevate that.”
As an advocate herself, advocating to the state legislature on behalf of public schools, Abdo loves students wanting to advocate and use their voice.
“It’s wonderful to hear from students. I think it’s great because this is what we’re here for,” said Abdo. “You all have a very important voice and a perspective that nobody else has. Sometimes even the most well meaning ideas or policies, it’s just a perspective that I don’t have. It’s great to hear from students whether it's by email or public comment.”
Tips for Speaking, Post Speaking, Building Relationships, and Advocacy
Tips for Speaking at the School Board Meetings
Abdo has been serving the Jenks Public School Board for 10 years. Her suggestion for anyone interested in speaking at school board meetings is:
Determine if it is a Board issue.
If you just kind of want practice in that environment of engaging and building relationships with people who represent you, don’t wait until something happens. Just come. If your goal is to just get started, pick something [like] the ISP program, ‘I really love this and I hope that our district is able to continue.’ Pick something positive because maybe that’s something easier. There can sometimes be nerves when you do something for the first time, there's a little anxiety, but that might be a lower barrier to get yourself accustomed to. [That way] you’ve already gone over that little hump with something that was maybe not as stressful as ‘oh this is the issue that I’m planting my flag on this hill and here it goes.’
Look for an opportunity not just that you’re concerned about but something that you want to advocate for and want to see continued.
Tips For Post Speaking
As an advocate who’s spoken at city council meetings, Jarman has a few “post speaking” tips.
Stick around the meeting, it might be late, but stick around and talk to the people around you. Usually when you make a public comment, other people come up and say ‘hey oh my gosh I was thinking about that too’ or ‘oh thank you for speaking.’ Start those conversations. Have those conversations. Connect with people. Try to get phone numbers, try to get emails of people who are interested in joining the movement or joining whatever you are thinking.
Email your school board members right after and just say ‘hey I want to thank you again for listening to me last night’ attach your speech and say ‘I would love to schedule a follow up meeting.’ I think follow up meetings are great and putting that information into an email.
I think a big thing too is to start reaching out. Use those connections you’re making after the meeting to start reaching out to people and say ‘hey I spoke on this issue, would you want to speak on this issue next school board meeting’ so they’re hearing more voices and seeing more people show up to the meeting themself.
“Showing that solidarity in a group, building those connections after the meeting, and making sure that you’re emailing and actively communicating with your school board members afterwards (if not before) is really important,” said Jarman.
Tips for Building Relationships
A big part of seeing your issue continues and finding a solution is building relationships with your school board members. Abdo’s suggestion to go about this is to:
Jenks Public School Board Member Information Table
Contact your school board member through email. By contacting your school board member, you can establish a relationship with them and request a meeting or a phone call. Sometimes things are easier to discuss than type out.
Tips for Advocacy
As an advocate herself, Abdo talked about viewing advocacy as a long term relationship.
“If you’re going to advocate, it’s kind of a long game. It’s a relationship building game,” said Abdo.
Get your facts straight: Email an administrator and ask ‘what are we doing?’ and make sure you’ve got your facts squared away.
Come to a school board meeting or email your school board member: Say ‘this is something really important to me, I think it would be good, I just wanted to put it on your radar.’ You might just start with those emails and see the kind of response. When I was first trying to reach out and get to know my legislator, I would email and I would actually look for something to email about and say ‘oh the session’s starting, I really hope this is a good session for public education,’ and letting them know this is the thing that I care about and I’m going to be paying attention to it over the next coming months. So it wasn’t like a combative ‘oh you better do this thing or vote a certain way,’ it was just me trying to say ‘hey I’m a person in your district and I care about this thing.’ I think that’s a really positive thing and I would love it if all of our students started thinking about that or developing that type of mindset about the things they care about.
Put yourself in a partnership role: Say, ‘I would love to be a part of this solution,’ don’t just say 'do something about this…see ya later, goodbye,’ but ‘this is something I care about, what are we doing, how can I help partner with this?’ When I have conversations like this, my mind is on it, so the next time I’m in a conversation with Dr. Butterfield or anyone in her cabinet, I’m aware and can say ‘oh yeah, what are we doing, I hear this is a need.’ That’s why it’s helpful to hear from people because the conversation and the progress doesn't always occur in a formal path, it can often occur in just other conversations that I wouldn’t have been able to have had I not been aware that this is something that you’re passionate about.
Official vs unofficial communication: There’s a difference between building that relationship with somebody and communicating in those more official pathways than getting online on facebook or twitter and tagging somebody. I don’t put a lot of stock in that. There’s a lot of negative. And it’s hard to interpret. Just establishing that relationship and not resisting that urge to just go online and say whatever you want to say in 140 characters.
Build your support system: Find out who the other organizations are that are also working [towards your goal]. Instead of trying to recreate the wheel (which is hard), there’s probably a lot [of people working towards your goal] and instead you can work in a coalition. If you form that coalition, you all learn from each other and kind of find different nuance areas.
Power in Numbers: When I first started, I was really really surprised because I would always go to the Capitol and advocate for funding towards schools and I remember talking to one of our lawmakers who said if they hear from six people back home in the district, then they know it's a big deal. I just thought ‘six people? That’s not very many.’ and so it made me realize how few people are actually reaching out at that level.
School Board shakes hands with faculty and volunteers.
“What’s Next”
Speaking at school board meetings isn't the “end-all” solution. It is a way to express feedback and personal stories to your community. It is a foot in the door to building relationships and shifting mindsets within your school board. Seeing that your issue continues and finds a solution happens outside of the school board meetings.
“I think speaking at school board meetings opens the door for youth to first verbalize and express the things that they are seeing, hearing, and feeling in their own experiences. I don’t think it’s the end-all solution.,” said Jarman. “There’s two major impacts that youth can make when they speak for public comment. [1] They shift the mindsets of everyone in the room on whatever issue but just on the experiences of youth in general. [2] They create an open space where other students can feel empowered to do the same thing and to start a movement. Every single social movement in history not only had youth involved, but was led by youth. There were youth leaders within every social movement we’ve ever seen. A lot of that starts with speaking out about something that they see as an injustice or something that they see needs to be changed, so I think keeping that in mind is that youth elevating an issue allows other youth to do the same and that piece is really empowering.”
For more information on Jenks School Board meetings, check out the Board of Education’s website.
For a more concise version of this article, check out my additional article, 10 Things to Know Before Speaking at a Jenks Public School Board Meeting. For a “deeper dive” into the Jenks School Board itself, check out former Torch staff member Liza Inbody’s article, “Deep Dive into the School Board.”