Newly named student trustee Maya Treuheit will attend her first school board meeting on Nov. 12 and fellow trustees can't wait to welcome her to the board table.
"The whole board's really excited about this," said School District No. 46 (SD46) board chair Silas White. "This term in particular the board has really emphasized our focus on students, so it's a perfect fit really to have a student right at the board table with us to show that emphasis more and to hear directly from students for the first time ever."
Maya is a Grade 12 student from Chatelech Secondary School who hopes to pursue a science degree in marine biology and/or documentary filmmaking in the future.
"I feel so incredibly honoured to have been given the privilege to represent the students of this community," Maya said. "I feel that, as a minority without the ability to vote, our voices can become lost. I want to make sure that all youth here feel like they have a safe, fun, healthy environment to grow up in and that their opinion matters."
Maya won't be able to vote on matters at the school board table as she's not an elected official, but trustees are eager to hear her opinion on issues that come to the board.
"It's important because we're making decisions that affect students every time we meet," White said. "In addition to that, we may be elected to make those decisions by parents and the broader community, but all of us are decades removed from actually being students and our experience as students is outdated anyway, so it's really important to hear directly from students about how our decisions are affecting them at the ground level."
Maya was chosen for the student trustee position from a pool of students on the Student Leadership Team.
The leadership team includes student representatives from all of the high schools on the Coast and it was established earlier this year by SD46.
Representatives from each school will bring concerns and suggestions from their peers to the attention of Maya, who can then raise them at the board table if appropriate.
Students on the team, who meet monthly with the superintendent of schools, are Jace Landry and Autumn La France from Pender Harbour Secondary, Bryan Ingram and Maya from Chatelech Secondary, Liam Moore and Sophie Garmulewicz from Elphinstone Secondary and Jaimi McLennan and Cody Broski from the Sunshine Coast Alternative School.
