Faith Jackson, a junior at Charles H. Flowers High School in Springdale, urged members of the Prince George’s Regional Association of Student Governments to “keep the faith” when they voted Tuesday for the next student member of the county school board.

They put their faith in Jackson by voting for her to succeed outgoing student board member Jonathan Harris II, who will graduate in June from Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School in Upper Marlboro.

“I care about the future of our schools and, more importantly, the future of our students,” Jackson said in her speech Tuesday at Bladensburg High School to a group of county high school and middle school student government members.

After she takes office in July, Jackson will sit on the county school board for a one-year term as a member with partial voting rights, said Richard Moody Jr., the supervisor of Prince George’s County Public Schools’ Student Affairs/Safe and Drug-Free Schools office. She will not be able to vote on budget or personnel matters.

But Jackson, who ran against two other students from Crossland High School in Temple Hills and Suitland High School, proposed solutions Tuesday to some budget concerns facing Prince George’s County Public Schools.

The school system should combine bus routes to lower costs and save transportation to specialty schools, she said. Similarly, Jackson suggested combining trips for varsity and junior varsity or boys and girls athletic teams could eliminate the need for the school system to charge students to play sports.

Students cheered Jackson’s assertion that course offerings should be equitable at schools across the county. Schools should be allowed to choose which courses to offer, she said, but some should be countywide.

Jackson would like to ease restrictions on the activities that count toward the 36 community service hours students must earn to graduate, she said, as well as to change what constitutes a snow day, so the school year does not extend late into June.

As the students’ representative on the school board, Jackson likely will spend much of the next year discussing Secondary School Reform, the plan to implement interest-based courses of study in the county’s high schools, and budget issues, Harris said.

Jackson is the first female student board member in about four years, Moody said. Before Harris, current board member Edward Burroughs III (Dist. 8) served two terms as student member after succeeding Haywood L. Perry III.

“She’s a dedicated worker,” Harris said of Jackson. “She has a passion about everything she does.”

The school board has had a student member since 1971, Moody said, and that student’s job is “to bring a student perspective to what is largely an adult board.”

The student position represents all county students in all aspects, said Harris, who focused on the school system’s grading and cell phone policies, bullying, and voter registration drives.

“A lot of our board members have been removed from the classroom for quite some time,” he said.

Harris worked with state Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Dist. 26) of Fort Washington to introduce a bill to the Maryland General Assembly to grant the Prince George’s County student board member full voting rights like those extended to the student members in Anne Arundel County. The legislation passed the Senate but died in the House of Delegates.

The three students interested in running for the position of student board member this year submitted nomination packets and were vetted by a committee of students and student government advisors.

The committee selects three students to stand for election, Moody said, but because there were only three candidates it ranges most years from two to eight this year, all went up for a vote by delegates from participating schools’ student governments.

abrownback@gazette.net