Feb 25, 2018 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read

A discussion session held during a 19-school student leadership conference hosted Feb. 22 by Peters Township School District produced this startling revelation.

“No one really cares about student council,” an anonymous observer opined. “Right now in student council, we have, like, eight people, and only four of us are here because the other ones didn’t want to come.”

That’s part of the reasoning behind the conferences, which Peters Township started six years ago with the intention of providing a means for students from various schools to share perspective and, if all goes well, inspiration.

“The whole goal for today is that students go back to their schools with ideas of how other schools are operating and how other student leaders are handling the way that they have a student voice in their schools,” Christian Lesnett, Peters Township High School assistant principal, explained. “So this is all to promote student voice and to promote the sharing of best practices among students.”

Lesnett also serves as sponsor for his school’s executive council of student leaders, which includes student council members from each of the four grades.

“Seven years ago, the executive council didn’t exist. Our student leadership group was very loose and disjointed, and went to Mt. Lebanon to see how their student council operates,” he recalled. “We don’t do it exactly like Mt. Lebanon, but we got inspired by going there and visiting with them, and we wanted that to happen on a bigger level.”

Mt. Lebanon was one of the high schools represented at this year’s conference, which was held at the Bible Chapel’s South Hills campus. Students from schools in Greene and Westmoreland counties also attended.

“The fun thing about today is that it is entirely student-run, -organized and -facilitated,” Lesnett said at the start of the event. “Not one adult will be speaking to students. The students will be speaking to their peers.”

Lexie DeLucia, vice president of Peters Township High School’s junior-class student council, took the reins in organizing this year’s conference after having attended the previous two.

“I think this is such a great experience for student leaders, because when you’re in your own school, you’re kind of in your own bubble. You don’t know about other ideas,” she said. “And when you bounce ideas off other student leaders who are going through the same things as you, it is so beneficial to take it back to your school.”

She credited her fellow executive council members, in ninth through 12th grades, with planning so effectively that she was “almost stress-free” the night before the conference.

“Everyone has worked really hard, and I am so glad at how much this has brought our group together at Peters,” Lexie said. “I hope that it benefits all the other groups at the other schools.”

The day’s discussion topics included addressing how much student leaders are involved at their schools, how they’re elected and whether they campaign for office, and the nature of their relationships with administrators.

“We ask them, ‘How do you communicate with your administration? How do you get things done?'” Lexie explained. “That’s really important in student leadership, because if you are representing your class, you shouldn’t just represent them. You should speak for them to the administration.”

The conference offered some surprises for participants.

“I didn’t realize it was odd to have more than 300 in a class,” Peters Township senior Mara Rayburg said about the number of students in her grade. “There were a lot of schools that had smaller than 100 students per class.

“Just hearing the different dynamics between the different schools was pretty cool,” she said. “I enjoyed hearing all the different ideas that people had. I picked up a bunch of stuff for myself, too, which was nice.

Sophomore Rachel Raber found the varying means by which schools elect their leaders to be of interest. At Peters Township, for example, she and others have gone through a campaign process that includes writing a speech, recording it and having it shown to their classmates before they vote.

“In some schools, they don’t have enough people running,” Rachel said. “And it’s sad to see that, because taking initiative being this young is a cool thing to do. It will help later in life.”

Students in those types of schools, take note. And perhaps by the end of the day, the anonymous student who spoke candidly was able to return to her school with some suggestions to counteract the apathy.