Advisory committee members continue to make a difference
The career fair at Wapakoneta High School, the posters scattered outside the building were both
ideas that came out of discussions between the Principal/student Advisory Committee, first formed last year as a way for school administration to have another pulse on the student body through its 28 members.
The monthly committee was back to work last Thursday after having a housekeeping meeting in September.
“Last year we spent a lot of time surveying our student body to see what their
concerns were in regards to the culture or climate at Wapakoneta High School,” Jennifer Zwiebel, mental health coordinator, said.
During the meeting, Doug Selvey, assistant principal, and Zwiebel shared results from a staff survey regarding respect, specifically if they felt respected by students and peers.
Members watched a video about different perspectives and discussed how opinions were neither right
nor wrong, just varied for different people.
“The staff might see that the students are not respective to one another but students might see that they
are,” she said.
In small groups, members focused on what respect should look like from student to student and student to staff member. Staff
members were defined as teachers, secretaries, bus
drivers, cafeteria workers, paraeducators and administration.
Students on the committee noted how it was easy
showing respect towards authority figures but not as easy to find examples of
students respecting each other.
“Your peers deserve the same respect as an authority figure in your life,” she said.
Another talking point from the meeting: sharing
information peer-to-peer was more impactful for students, especially in smaller groups.
The meeting ended with members discussing different ways to spread a message of respect through the student body and having students understand what respect should look like.
“We talked about how people can change,” Austin
Brown, a sophomore who was on the committee last year, said.
Brown admitted context is critical, because reacting to situations without knowing what someone was going through could make a bad situation worse.
Jayden Rampulla was
also on the committee last year and wanted to return in hopes of making WHS a better place.
“[Last year] I learned that it’s easy to come together with a group of people that are students, and… it’s easier that way to make a difference [as opposed to] just teachers saying they need to make a change,” he said.
Being on the committee also allowed him to create relationships with students
he wouldn’t have necessarily spoken to.
“[The committee comes together] and you can see that your points of view are
similar so you can talk to [other committee members] outside of this and just build a bond as friends,” he
said.
Similarly, students outside the committee have approached him with their own ideas to improve the school, some good and some bad.
He’s also heard the student members referred to as the snitch group, an idea he’s tried to debunk.
“I tell [students] it’s not like that at all,” he said. “We’re coming together to try to make the school a
more respectful, better place for everybody that comes here to learn. Everybody should be equal.”
Jocee Tenwalde is a junior, but unlike Brown and Rampulla this was her first year serving after hearing about the committee and
seeing the potential to positively impact other students’ lives.
So far, she’s enjoyed her time.
“I like that there’s a culture of respect within all the students that are in
here and how we’re able to get along with one another,”
she said. “I’m excited to dive deeper into it.”
This year, she’s hoping the committee can address diversity issues within the building.
“A lot of students maybe don’t have access to resources that will teach them about that stuff or
maybe they just aren’t interested in that stuff at the
moment” she said. “But I feel it’s important to create
just that culture of respect around the school [and] not
just within the group.”