Once Upon a Time in Howard County

 

And they all lived happily ever after.

You already know the story. Angry parents challenged the right of the Howard County School System to have a voting Student Member of the Board. They turned their anger into a lawsuit. That case, heard in Howard County Circuit Court, was unsuccessful. They were granted the right to appeal to Maryland’s highest court. Yesterday the decision was made public.

Maryland’s highest court upholds voting rights for student school board members,  Lillian Reed and Cassidy Jensen, Baltimore Sun 

From the decision:

…we agree with the Board and the circuit court that the General Assembly had the constitutional authority to create a student member position for the Howard County Board, establish a process for the election of such member by students in the Howard County public school system, and grant such student member voting rights.

This decision affirms the legal authority of the school system to honor student voice in a very tangible way. Student voice is not merely some nice term for gathering students in small groups for discussions and saying “we hear you.” It is bigger than inspirational bulletin boards or essay contests. For student voice to be meaningful it has to have teeth, as it were. It needs to be plugged in to where the decisions are being made. 

Students need to be allowed the right to have influence in matters that concern students. The SMOB position is not the only way to honor that, but it is the most powerful affirmation of student voice that we have. Reading the outcome of this case yesterday gave me not only a sense of relief but also a feeling of pure joy. 

Once upon a time in Howard County a Student Member of the Board named Zach Koung was ridiculed and vilified by members of the public.

The Big Lie and the Extremely Tiny Lawsuit, Village Green/Town², December 17, 2020

They don’t like what he does, they don’t like what he says, they don’t like how he says it. They don’t like his facial expressions and his body language. And let’s look at the kinds of things they object to:

• Speaking to racial equity issues
• Supporting the removal of SRO’s from schools 
• Anything that could be characterized as “Progressive”

And then they didn’t like how he voted, either. Hence, the lawsuit. If we don’t like the result of this vote, maybe SMOBs shouldn’t have a vote. It seemed a simple, effective solution.

But it turned out that the SMOB was connected to a network of current and former SMOBs all over the state. This was not any kind of official network. It was an array of like-minded people who had talked the talk and walked the walk since the position of SMOB was created. The lawsuit brought out the skills they had honed during those high school years and revealed the accomplishments they’d achieved since.

They used their voices. 

It was a powerful communication to our community and the state. We believe in this. We have been there. It must have spoken volumes to Mr. Koung. He was not alone.

My telling of our story has no dragons, no evil sorcerers, no knight in shining armor coming over the hill. This is more a tale of angry villagers who have lost their way. The resolution was simple: Maryand State law supports the choices of local jurisdictions to have voting Student Members of the Board. That’s it.

No matter who tells this story (And I suspect it will have a variety of tellings) that last bit is the most important. Don’t let it get lost.

Marcy Leonard, Principal of Wilde Lake High School, was also Howard County’s first SMOB. This morning I read her response to news of the resolution of this case:

*We don’t do TO our students 

*We don’t act FOR our students

*We lead WITH our students

I think it makes a remarkably good epilogue.