1/29/2009 5:02:00 AM Student works as advisor on state board
By LACEY MCLAUGHLIN Staff Reporter
As a junior at Madison Central, Neil McMillin has a direct line to the state's highest school official, offering suggestions and looking for answers to the problems facing today's high school students.
McMillin, 17, was selected by his teachers to serve on the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) Youth Advisory Board set up by state Superintendent of Education Dr. Hank Bounds.
Comprised of 20 students from different high schools across the state, the board was created in November 2007 and has met several times with Bounds and other MDE officials to discuss a variety of issues.
One of the main areas the board has focused on is improving the state's overall high school drop-out rate.
As a member of the board, McMillin serves as a liaison for the students at MCHS. He often takes time to question them, then brings the ideas back to Bounds and the MDE board.
"Some of us have thought more access to computers would help," McMillin said. "Also instead of high schools being so college focused they could be more technical and skill focused so they can help students prepare for jobs."
He attributed Madison Central's model for the basis of his ideas on how to improve education for the state.
"Most of my ideas have come the model at Madison Central," McMillin said. "We are so fortunate to have great administrators, lots of businesses who sponsor us, and we have great athletics and AP classes."
Terry Pickeral, a consultant with the Education Commission, helps facilitate the meetings. He said that Mississippi is the only state to use the concept of a youth advisory board as a functioning process between the superintendent and students.
"This is a new idea that many states have thought about but find it hard to implement," Pickeral said. "Dr. Bounds is a pioneer on this, and he takes the information from the students and helps craft it into policies."
Last month students on the board met for a two-day session in which they discussed some of the issues facing students. The students took part in a work session on leadership, as well as communication and team building skills.
Students also met with House Education Chairman Rep. Cecil Brown and Rep. Sara Thomas and learned about the process for developing policy into law and reformulated their ideas on drop-out prevention.
Pickeral said that the board is more than just a liaison between students and officials, however. He said the program also encourages youth leadership in the state.
"We teach them how to be leaders, the students self organize and work very diligently at the things they care about," he said. "These are young people who are leaders but not the most obvious ones.
"The are insightful, honest and smart," he continued. "All you have to do is spend 20 minutes with these students to see how smart they really are."
For McMillin, serving on the board has brought about a new interest in education and policy.
"The legislative process never interested me until I got on the board, and now I am," he said. "Before I would just read the sports section in the newspaper and now I also read the Perspective section."
In addition to serving on the board McMillin is the president of his class, an Eagle Scout, member of the MCHS swim team and a member of the National Society of High School Scholars.
