Hi Kid: Should Kids Be In Charge?

LET’S TALK ABOUT IT…
Should Kids Be In Charge?

We have noticed an interesting trend.

More and more often, we read about various governments in Colorado advocating for the inclusion of the “youth voice” in aspects of policy-making. While we recognize that children are affected by decisions made by their governments, just as the rest of us are, we wonder just how deeply embedded in the political process children should be. We were young once and can confidently say we are much wiser now in our ‘advanced’ age.

Just how are children involved in governmental decisions? Here are a few significant examples we came across.

Poudre School District Student Advisory Council PSD has a student council consisting of “selected students” which meets monthly to advise the elected Board of Education. The small council of students provide opinions regarding vital Board responsibilities such as curriculum, budgeting and strategic direction. The kids are provided the opportunity to engage directly with elected officials and encourage policy and legislative action.

Colorado Youth Advisory Council COYAC is a group of diverse students from across Colorado who actively engage in legislative policy development. The students are guided by a group of five elected representatives from the Colorado House and Senate who are annually appointed by legislative leadership. The council is managed through a contract with the Bighorn Leadership Program, an ambiguous organization connected to Colorado State University. A current controversial bill, HB24-1039, a bill which “deems a school's refusal to use a student's preferred name a form of discrimination” came directly from COYAC and its associated elected representatives. Read more about HB24-1039 in the “Is This a Good Idea” segment below.

New Era Colorado New Era calls itself one of the most effective youth civic engagement organizations in the country. Their guiding principles are fighting for equity and justice and they seek to disrupt the status quo and “reshape democracy.” New Era has been growing financially and in influence and actively pursues political aims such as developing and advocating in Denver for what they call the “Youth Agenda”; fighting for issues such as climate change, reproductive rights, and “democracy reform”; and partnering with organizations such as the American Federation of Teachers, ONE Colorado, and the Colorado Working Families Party to mobilize forces in action around subjects such as immigrant rights and gender expression. The group is successful in rallying youth to vote, as well. New Era is the largest young voter registration organization in Colorado, and has registered almost 200,000 young voters. According to New Era, “We turn those voters out in droves…our efforts have helped Colorado achieve some of the highest young voter turnout rates in the nation—and the voters we registered turn out at rates as high as 82%.”

TRENDING CONVERSATIONS
Harassment or a Constitutional Right?

Here’s an interesting conversation on X. Yesterday on the floor of the Colorado House, Representative Ken DeGraff referred to Representative Brianna Titone as “Mr. Chair” upon being yielded the floor. Brianna Titone is a man who believes he is a woman and corrected Representative DeGraff by saying, “It’s Madame Chair”. What do you think?

Should your government have the right to dictate what you can or cannot say? Is this harassment? Is the First Amendment of the Constitution relevant to this situation?

IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?
What’s in a Name?

Local state Senator Janice Marchman, a Thompson School District teacher, is sponsoring HB24-1039 legislation requiring schools to use the name and pronouns requested by a child in their classrooms and on school documents such as yearbooks and identification cards. A school employee’s refusal to use a non-legal name for a student would be deemed discriminatory. The bill does not require parental notification of a child’s request for a non-legal name to be used at school. Co-sponsoring the legislation are Northern Colorado Representatives Andy Boesenecker and Cathy Kipp, a former Poudre School District Board of Education Director.

OR IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?
Infected Bats in Our Backyards?

We wonder how many people in our community are aware of the tax—payer funded $12 million dollar bat lab that has been approved by the Larimer County Planning Commission. The lab will be a part of Colorado State University and is being planned with collaboration from the National Institutes of Health, CSU, and the EcoHealth Alliance.

New public records request information has revealed the CSU research facility developing the bat lab to have a history of biohazard accidents which have gone unreported to the local community.

Is our community aware of the planned lab? Is a bat lab a risk our neighbors want to have in our backyards?

WHY WAS I NEVER TOLD?
Public Schools Began in Massachusetts

Americans have not always relied on a public school system to educate its children. From the time of the Pilgrims up through the mid-1800s, American children were primarily educated at home or in churches or by private tutors. Even poor students were provided free education provided by churches and philanthropists. The model was successful—Americans had extremely high literacy rates.

This all changed in 1837 when a politician named Horace Mann brought education under state control when he spearheaded the formation of the US’s first “Board of Education” in Massachusetts. Mann, while Christian in his upbringing, valued the state as the church of collective man which must be upheld by morally training its citizens to perfect it using “social efficiency and “civic virtue”. Mann believed that human society on Earth could be perfected through the application of The Common Schools, and identified education as salvation. Proud of his creation, Mann humbly stated, “The Common School is the greatest discovery ever made by man…”

Mann’s work fundamentally changed the trajectory of US education in two ways: first, it secularized education, second, Mann shifted education away from the community and parents and into the purview of the state.

DINNER TABLE DISCUSSION
Can Humans Be Perfected?

Can individual humans be made better or perfected? If so, who decides what makes them perfect and who should decide how to build them that way? Is it the proper role of public school counselors to build better humans? How do they know how to do that?

BEFORE YOU GO:

📋 There is a Master Plan for the Behavioral Health of Larimer County. Are You Behaving Yourself?

💰 Shocking: CASEL-the Organization Pushing Social Emotional Learning Celebrates More Tax Dollars Being Allocated to Social Emotional Learning.

🤓 Superintendents Undertake the Important Work of Examining Whiteness in Minnesota.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

☑️ ATTEND the next PSD Board of Education meeting. Details HERE.

☑️ LEARN about Fort Collins’ involvement with the German Marshall Fund Cities Fortifying Democracy project HERE.

☑️ JOIN an event at CSU’s Democracy Summit April 8th-12th. Schedule HERE.

☑️ Sign Up for New Era Colorado’s email list and learn about their passionate political work HERE.