Nov. 23, 2024, students from the Camas School District (CSD) met at Zellerbach Administration Center. The students ranged from sixth-12th grade, coming from various schools across the district. These meetings occur every first and third Monday and Wednesday of the month, where CSD students collaborate and input different student perspectives within the district.
This is the Student Advisory Committee (SAC), an interactive student council founded by former CSD Superintendent Jeff Snell. The SAC meetings began via Zoom during the pandemic in 2021 and were modeled after the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC). Similar to CAC, the student committee is composed of 25-30 CSD students and serves to educate students regarding raising student voice.
“In the last three years, [SAC] has become more of an action committee, where students join because they want to make a difference, not just have their voice shared. It’s morphed a little bit over time. The two main projects that we are currently working on for the last couple of years are the Windows and Mirror projects,” Katie Seidl, CSD Opportunity for Access and Inclusion coordinator, said.
Seidl is also one of the adult supervisors of SAC.
“The Windows and Mirrors project is about reaching out and trying to teach SEL [Social-Emotional Learning] lessons to elementary schoolers,” Mason Vancleave, SAC member and CHS senior, said.
The Windows and Mirrors project is an outreach project targeted at fifth grade students in the district. The project’s goal is to encourage looking through the perspective of other members in the community (Windows) and reflecting on yourself (Mirrors). It attempts to promote mindfulness within the Camas community.
Another event connected to SAC is the Camas Student Leadership Conference (CSLC), specifically tailored to middle and high school students.
“[SAC] get leadership students and students from secondary schools and we have a giant meeting in the district office. The district uses [CSLC] for strategic planning for every ten years and we do it for our own curriculum,” Tiana Teso, CHS senior said.
Teso is also one of SAC’s longest standing members, joining in 2021, when SAC was first created.
“[In CSLC meetings] we have had a keynote speaker each time. The first time was Nan Hendriksen [former mayor of Camas] sharing her experience about being a woman in leadership and last year we had Jeff Snell who had a speech about inclusion,” Seidl said.
Many new students joined SAC this year. Many of those students say that they found application information via email or, more popularly, through word of mouth.
“We try to find ways that students would engage in applying for this like they would in any other opportunity, but I still think that there is growth to expand what that could look like. We did max out our opportunities this year [filling almost 40 spots in SAC] and this is the first year we have done that, but I think we would be open to finding other ways to reach students as well,” Seidl said.
Applications for SAC open at the end of each school year. Information can be found on school flyers, emails, and announcements throughout CSD schools.
