Members of the United Local Student Initiative Club who attended the Learning InspirED Student Power Summit held last month in Granville included, from left, sophomore Levi Lucas, sophomore M’Kyan Haynes; freshman Scarlett Courtney; junior Olivia Ashburn; freshman Dominic Wilson and junior Kadin Schonauer. (Submitted photo)

HANOVERTON — A group of United Local students recently received an opportunity to not only travel to a conference in Columbus but also to take a more active role in their education.

During March’s district school board meeting, three members Levi Lucas, Olivia Ashburn and Scarlett Courtney presented to district administrators, school board members and attendees about their quest.

Earlier in the year, board members had elected to skip the Ohio School Board Association Capital Conference — instead allowing the money to be deferred for a student and staff contingent to attend the Student Power Summit held by Learning InspirED in Granville last month.

As Ashburn explained United Local’s contingent was one of the conference’s few that included students. “(The goal) was to make students part of the decision-making process (in their futures),” she added.

In addition to Ashburn, Courtney and Lucas, other students attending were Kadin Schonauer, McKwan Haynes and Dominic Wilson. Also slated to attend but unable to because of a conflict was Ashton Brown.

District Superintendent Lance Hostetler said the group’s first preconference assignment had been to survey their schoolmates.

The group members began interviews in January, noting students were more comfortable sharing their thoughts with fellow students than adults.

Armed with that data, which included information regarding engagement opportunities, the group traveled to Granville to learn about youth mental health, building responsibility and trust, compliance versus engagement, student autonomy and learning design.

As Lucas detailed he and his fellow group members attended various sessions during the event, including how to utilize AI for writing responsibly. The group was particularly interested in how the bigger schools use electives for career exploration.

Building relationships within the group, which included youth that did not necessarily fall in the circle, was a positive by-product, according to group member Courtney.

“We want to empower students and improvement engagement,” she said, adding the group — now known as the United Local Student Initiative Club — would like to attend next year’s summit even though it is a lot farther from home in Los Angeles. The group has already discussed forming an official club and beginning to fund raise.

Hostetler mentioned that the club would be student-driven but guided by himself, principal Todd Huda and guidance counselor Lorraine Raymond: “We are just here to provide resources.”

Board member Heather Mercer visited the conference for one day and was impressed. She told meeting attendees, “The new school is the perfect opportunity with flexible learning spaces.”

Ashburn agrees students have not had much control over their career paths in the past, and the group wants to improve that.

Group members hope that being a smaller district compared to ones like Granville could be an easier time implementing the changes.

Some of the new clubs they would like to see implemented include a speech and debate club and photography club they told board member RuthAnn Rinto.

Their next order of business is to draft a proposal for the administration for their club based on the Granville model.