Kennedy Harris, a junior at John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School, has been selected as a 2024 Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA) Youth Advisory Council member.
Harris was notified in May of this year that she had been selected for this role, but she was officially recognized as a council member at the Richmond County School System (RCSS)’s Tuesday night Board of Education meeting.
The Youth Advisory Council will give Harris a platform to participate in the discourse surrounding education policies and practices.
Application process and video essay
The two-part application process included a written essay; applicants selected based on these essays were able to advance to the next round of application, which included the submission of a video essay.
“The documents [she submitted] were so impressive and insightful that the committee felt compelled to offer this opportunity to Kennedy,” said RCSS Superintendent Dr. Kenneth Bradshaw at the board meeting where she was honored.
In Harris’s video essay submission, she talked about her reaction to being selected to advance to the second round of applications. “I jumped out of my bed and started screaming like crazy. I ran to my parents and I could barely even get the words out before they already knew what I was talking about, because this is just something that I have really put my all into.”
In this video, Harris said she wants to be an advocate for student mental health and students with invisible disabilities. In Harris’s words, this includes “internal injuries that many students have that nobody sees at first glance, like, for example, if someone has a heart condition.”
Impacting schools across Georgia
Harris is the sole youth representative for Richmond County public schools, and works alongside nine other Youth Advisory Council members from other districts throughout Georgia. Together, they are able to contribute to policies that are made and integrated in Georgia schools. “We can’t always vote on decisions, but we have a really big influence,” she said.
From July until December, Youth Advisory Council students are required to attend six separate meetings, two in-person and four video conferences. The next in-person meeting will be a conference in Atlanta in December.
“That’s when we really take into consideration all the ideas and the policies that we want to have integrated in our schools,” she said about these meetings.
“This is definitely a huge step for me,” said Harris. “If you told me that I was going to be this last year, I definitely wouldn’t believe you because this truly was a huge step ,and I really came out of my comfort zone for this. Because I’ve always wanted to be involved with my school system and decision making, and just knowing that I’m actually doing it now is truly amazing.”
