Kokomo High School students are learning more than just science and math. Through a city program, over two dozen students are learning about their community.
The Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council connects high school juniors and seniors with boards around the Kokomo community, where students not only learn about organizations and programs, they’re given an opportunity to share their voices.
Eanca Canameti and Iliana Mehmeti, both international students from Albania, attend planning commission meetings. By attending the meetings, the girls have learned quite a bit about government in Indiana and the U.S.
In Albania, the government isn’t broken down into so many commissions and boards, Canameti said.
“I’ve been involved in other government commissions in Albania,” she said. “In Albania, we don’t have the small commissions. We just have the direct relationship with the mayor. They have both positive and negative sides.”
But aside from that, government boards in Kokomo aren’t too different from those in her home country, Mahmeti said. She said she is interested in the plan commission because it deals with different building projects around the city.
“I’m interested in architecture,” she said. “They discuss different plans they’ve designed, and they decide if they like the new designs for the plan. They also care about what the neighbors think about the plan.”
The girls heard about the youth advisory board through their teacher, Scott Mathias, a government teacher at Kokomo High School.
The program is meant to encourage students to get more involved in their communities, Mathias said.
“This program does that,” Mathias said. “It gets them involved in local boards and commissions. … They get to learn about how these boards work and act as a student voice on these boards.”
He hopes students involved in the program now will stay involved after high school, and he has seen some students go on to participate in and even lead certain boards in the community.
Steve Whikehart is a good example, he said. Whikehart, department chair of the elementary education department at Ivy Tech Kokomo, attended Kokomo High School in the late 1990s and participated in the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council. Through the program, he was connected with the Kokomo Housing Authority board.
Before sitting on that board, he knew little about the Kokomo Housing Authority, but he said he had some great mentors who helped nurture an interest in future community work. Today, Whikehart is a member of the Kokomo City Council, and he sits on several other boards.
Whikehart did more than simply sit and listen at those board meetings back in 1998. He was able to participate in discussions and provide his own input. This is exactly what Mathias hopes students will do.
Abigail Hibler and Rachel Wyrick are both students involved with the governance team at the YMCA. During a meeting last month where they provided updates to Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight, the girls said they were able to become very involved with the board.
“They’ve allowed us to give our opinions, and I feel like we’re being involved and immersing ourselves in the community, and it’s a great feeling,” Hibler said.