DULUTH - A group of Duluth high school students unsatisfied with the education they're getting announced Tuesday the formation of a new student group that aims to improve it.
Calling themselves Students for the Future, about 50 high school students dressed in blue filled the back of the room at the Duluth School Board meeting Tuesday night. A handful of them stood up and told board members the problems they see in their schools and what students plan to do to try to fix them.
"We believe that the education in the Duluth school district has been in a decline over the past couple years ... and we need to take action in order to save our education," said Sam Seering, a senior at East High School and one of the spokespersons for the group. He pointed to teacher layoffs, cuts to programs and the subpar performance of some schools on statewide math and reading tests as evidence of the decline.
"All of that is taking away from the education students are getting," Seering said.
To change course, the group plans to push for an increased operational levy in 2010 and hopes to set up centralized tutoring programs in all three high schools. It also plans to organize a forum on the coming School Board election to allow students to directly question the people who could be running their schools.
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Seering said the group so far has the support of about 400 high school students it has contacted through Facebook, by phone or face-to-face.
John Jackson, a junior at Denfeld, said the student group is particularly important right now given the tumultuous times the Duluth school district is enduring since adopting the long-range facilities plan.
"The division we are facing in this city has really put up a wall between us getting things done and we want to work to change that," he said.
So far the group is not taking a stance on the long-range facilities plan, but group members said they may down the road.
Joel Bransky, a senior at Central, said the group's main focus will be to serve as a unified voice for the students of Duluth and work to bring about the changes that will best serve them educationally.
"When students are not united it to some extent erodes the aims of ISD 709," he said. "This group promotes the unity we need."
The group's approximately 14 organizational members from the three high schools plan to meet about once a week to work toward their goals, the first of which will be to set up the forum for the upcoming School Board elections.
