Long Island BOCES Held Joint Student Forum

The three Long Island-based BOCES (Nassau, Western Suffolk, and Eastern Suffolk) recently held their annual, in-person Regional Student Forum at St. Joseph’s University in Patchogue.

50 districts and five CTE schools across the region sent more than 160 student representatives to participate in this event, which gave public high school students the opportunity to share their thoughts, ideas and concerns about issues that impact them, their schools and communities.

Students assumed the roles of both participants and facilitators during the four breakout discussions, in addition to serving as speakers who summarized and reported their findings and conclusions on each topic to all forum attendees.

To guarantee that the forum subject matter was meaningful to students, ideas were gathered using ThoughtExchange, a platform that allows organizations to solicit feedback using open-ended questions. Students at districts across the region (whether they planned to attend or not) were polled about topics that matter most to them and several were chosen for the forum.

Those selected themes were:

·         Academic Pressure

·         Mental Health

·         The School Environment

·         Career Planning / Skills for Life

High-profile leaders in state education addressed the group and served as workshop facilitators. These included New York State Regent Felicia Thomas-Williams, and the district superintendents from Nassau, Western Suffolk and Eastern Suffolk BOCES; Larry Leaven, April Poprilo, and Jasmin Varela, respectively.

Said Varela, “By bringing together high school students from across Long Island, we created a dynamic platform for them to express their views on pivotal issues. For educators, this forum offered an invaluable window into the authentic experiences and innovative ideas of our learners. It was a chance to understand their challenges, aspirations and the solutions they envision, directly from the source.”