The new Maine Department of Education Student Cabinet held its first conference Dec. 20 in Augusta, with 32 students from fourth grade to college freshman. Each county was represented by at least one student. Lincoln County had Boothbay Region Elementary School’s Zaid Osman and Boothbay Region High School’s Emma Markowitz.

Interviewed ahead of the conference, Osman expressed excitement over being elected to represent his school and county. “I was expecting they were going to tell me how I'm doing. Nope, just right out of the blue: 'Hey, you got elected for the Maine Student Cabinet!' I said, ‘Wow, that's really awesome.’ I was really excited.”

Osman anticipated the conference’s central points would include learning, safety and transportation, especially considering students and teachers are struggling to work in as much as possible around snow days.

“When there are snow days, teachers give packets for kids to do at home as work. I feel like that's going to be a topic at some point. It's kind of starting to blow up a little … so, a lot of the things will be more on learning. I've had a lot of kids come up to me and say, 'Make longer recesses!' But I say you gotta take it a little more seriously.”

Osman also takes safety seriously and said he considers it the most important issue of all, given the nation’s school shootings and gun violence . “Unfortunately, school shootings have been quite a serious issue. I don't want to have everyone in the school, teachers and students, to have the risk of one day – you know? That really stinks to worry about. We are a smaller area, but you have to still worry about that because anything can go wrong at anytime. That's, if you think about it, quite scary.”

The Boothbay Register caught up with Markowitz Dec. 24. “I was really excited (about the conference) because I'd never really been a part of something like that … It went amazing. It was so great to be in a room with so many kids who are inspired and ready for change and I was impressed with how many kids were on the same page I was.”

Before getting down to issues in Maine education, students were directed into some ice-breaking activities. The first involved choosing up to eight descriptors from a list of 50 to show which best described one’s personality. “Words like 'dedicated,' 'loyalty,' 'family' – and we had to choose a few that we couldn't live without.”

Students were then asked to narrow their list down to three descriptors. “It was hard because you had to get rid of things like 'family' or 'happiness,' but what you ended up with was really important and it was powerful … I think mine were ‛dedication,’ ‛hard work’ and ‛determination,’” Markowitz said.

Another ice breaker had students identify themselves with foods starting with the same first letter as their names. Meet Zucchini Zaid and Enchilada Emma.

As a former Waldorf School student now spending half her time learning at home and the other half in some of BRHS’s more rigorous classes, Markowitz was told her application to represent Lincoln County stood out because she has had a diverse experience in education. “They said they thought that I'd be valuable to have on the team.”

Markowitz said there is only one other homeschool student on the cabinet, but there were no wildly different perspectives on the problems schools are facing. Everyone agreed on the big problems and brought many different perspectives on how to address them. Breaking into smaller groups, the high school students talked about issues like drugs and alcohol, violence and teachers – all difficult topics, even personal, but productive and much needed, said Markowitz.

After initial discussions, Markowitz got the impression standardized testing will dominate discussion in future sessions and conferences. Even parents, teachers and other adults were speaking about the subject in another room at the conference because everyone is starting to realize testing is becoming excessive, said Markowitz.

“We have a group chat on Snapchat so we can all keep in touch … and I think we're going to focus on testing because everyone in that room hates standardized testing … Some people have to drive to Portland to get SAT prep when they really should be at school learning.”

With young students now also having a voice on important issues, will the Legislature be listening? Osman thinks so.

“Definitely. This is a really big thing and if we all agree on something and try to make schooling overall better, this cabinet will be heard and taken for consideration. I bet you there will be a lot of good ideas and thoughts that will definitely make school a better place.”