Pallas Snider, a senior at Severna Park High, has hardly attended school this year.
“I think I?ve maybe been in school two or three days a week,” she said. “I?ve done a lot of my work from home, sometimes taking tests at 5:30 in the afternoon.”
But her lack of attendance won?t keep her from graduating or attending Harvard in the fall.
Instead of sitting in a classroom, Snider spent her senior year touring schools, listening to testimony and voting on some tough issues as the student member on the Anne Arundel County Board of Education. Her term ends June 30.
Brittany Walker, 17, a rising senior at Old Mill High School in Millersville, will replace Snider.
In Maryland, student School Board members are nominated by delegates to the Chesapeake Regional Association of Student Councils, but they must be confirmed by the governor before taking the seat.
Anne Arundel?s board is the only one in the state whose student member holds full voting rights. In other jurisdictions, voting rights range from no vote to votes on everything except personnel and budget matters.
Being granted access to some confidential information has meant learning how to keep secrets from her friends and family members, Snider said.
Her yearlong term has been eventful. She has dealt with the resignation of a superintendent and the hiring of a new one. She has participated in some serious debates about school scheduling and redistricting. The board has also wrestled with the implementation of a civil rights parity agreement, a new three-year teacher salary contract and upheaval at one of the county?s fledgling charter schools.
“There are days when I think this job is the best job in the world, and then there are days when I?m making this decision that will affect 30,000 kids and you sometimes don?t know what the right thing is,” Snider said.
School Board member Michael Leahy said he initially worried that having a student School Board member would open the door for so-called special interest seats.
“But the student seat is not the same,” he said. “They?re still young enough to be open-minded about things.”
Board member Eugene Peterson downplayed concerns that student members were more vulnerable to family and outside influences.
“That?s politics,” he said. “Was there influence from the dinner table? Sure. But I?m sure there?s influence from my dinner table, too.”
