BY LAURA BASCIOTTA
Staff Writer

After some debate, the district has decided to keep current junior and senior school board representatives, and add new sophomores this year.
Originally, the sophomore, junior, and senior classes had one representative each chosen by administration, but the board added one more representative to each class, to be elected by students.
The board briefly discussed reopening all positions each year, but instead decided that once representatives are chosen, they will stay on until graduation. Each year, then, two new sophomores will be added.
“In the end, we chose to keep those already appointed due to the promise that was given to them. The only new ones to join will be the (incoming) sophomores,” Principal Dr. Walter Graves said.
Corina Pittman and Michael Kahwash won the position on the school board for the sophomore class. Pittman believes the position gives her a chance to express the thoughts of the student body.
“I’m in favor of the new policy, as it gave me this opportunity to represent the student body and make a difference,” she said.
One of the main jobs for the representatives is to voice the concerns of the student body to the district’s top decision-makers. Graves said the new sophomores will do that.
“They all meet the criteria of what it means to be a student representative and shine as leaders,” Graves said.
The lack of freshman representation at the school board meetings has been debated. Graves and the school board believe that freshmen are not ready.
“The freshmen don’t have representation because the board feels that during ninth grade, you’re just getting used to the high school,” Graves said.
Senior Scott Friedman has been on school board for a year now. He feels positive about the new policy.
Friedman said increasing the number of the representatives to six students total is a big move for Baldwin. Some other school districts have only two student representatives total, he said.
“B-W is leading the way when it comes to student involvement. I think it’s great they expanded it from three to six. It definitely gives the student body a much bigger delegation of student opinion,” Friedman said.