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South Fayette student a ‘key communicator’ for school board

By Jacob Calvin Meyer staff Writer jmeyer@thealmanac.Net 4 min read
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For the last eight years, the South Fayette School Board has welcomed a high school student to serve as a student representative.

Superintendent Bille Rondinelli said having a student act in a “key communicator” role between the student body and the school board has been beneficial for the district. This year’s student representative, senior Kristen Davis, is doing just that, Rondinelli said.

“Kristen has done an amazing job,” Rondinelli said. “She is doing a wonderful job not only voicing her opinion when it’s appropriate but also voicing that of the student body as well. She thoroughly shares information at the student government meetings, and she’s attending as many meetings as she possibly can. It’s really been a joy and a pleasure to work with her in this capacity.”

As the student representative, Kristen meets with student government to inform them of school board happenings and attends every school board meeting and gives reports about happenings at the school. Essentially, she is the middlewoman between the high school and the school board.

“Being on the school board is a really good way to give the student voice to the board members so that students are getting what they want out of the school and so the board can do things for the school that students are going to respond to,” Kristen said.

With the high school renovation project finishing up, Rondinelli said Kristen was helpful in disseminating information from the school board to the students, and vice versa.

“It’s really been exciting to have a student through the alterations and additions project at the high school,” Rondinelli said. “When we did our initial walk through before everything was opened up to the public, Kristen was invited to be a part of that…she was able to relay some of that information to the student body and assure them that we would be starting school on time.”

Kristen has been interested in politics since she was a freshman at South Fayette, a lot of which was sparked by her involvement in GirlGov, a Pennsylvania organization meant to provide high school girls with opportunities in government.

“That was something that really opened my eyes to a lot of the opportunities that are out there for women in politics,” Kristen said.

Along with GirlGov and being a student representative, Kristen also plays the trombone in the Little Green Machine Marching Band, is a member of the school’s Model UN team and is the president of the Oakdale Chapter of the National Honors Society. In college, Kristen either wants to pursue political science or international relations as a major.

“To me, it’s about being able to help people. Being in the position of power, you really have the opportunity to use it to help the world systematically,” she said. “By exposing myself to politics in high school, I can learn how it all actually works and how you go about making the changes that you want to see happen.”

Kristen, who started her one-year term in May, said she wanted to be a student representative because she sees herself having a future in politics.

“Being able to be a part of the school board and seeing what they really do was a really great way to get in on the local level,” she said. “Being able to be a part of the school board and go to the meetings and see what really they’re doing at that level is a really good way for me to get a handle on politics and how it really works.”

Learning more about the student body at South Fayette is also something about her job that Kristen enjoys.

“It’s made me consider a lot more of the student body,” Kristen said. “Sometimes it’s easy to just kind of stay in your little grouping with the activities that you do. I’ve really had to expand my scope, and I’ve learned a lot more about the student body even in just these few months that I’ve been serving.”

In 2010 when the district decided to have a student representative, Rondinelli said it was important to her to have someone speaking for the students.

“The students are the reason why we’re here,” Rondinelli said. “We’re here for our children and the families that we serve, and we want to make sure we’re hearing what they have to say as far as their opinions. Their voice matters.”

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