Junior Eileen Duong plans to take her seat among the board of education at the upcoming June board meeting. Seated next to the elected board members and district personnel, Duong will represent Temple City High School by expressing her opinions and concerns.
On February 25, ASB elected Duong as Student Board Member for the 2018-2019 school year over social media. In this position, she will be responsible for sharing the feedback of not only TCHS students, but all the students within Temple City.
“I will serve on the board of education as the voice of the students,” Duong said. “If there are any suggestions, they should go through me so I can bring them up to the board during meetings.”
One of Duong’s main goals is to implement a mental health awareness week. During this week, Duong wants to put posters up and have more resources available for students. She is eager to work towards this proposal because the idea has never been requested and is completely new. If approved, Duong will try to carry out her idea to the elementary and middle schools in the district.
“I’m still doing research to see what’s doable without crossing a line,” Duong said. “For now I was thinking about posters, banners, brochures, and maybe even mental health screenings.”
Additionally, Duong wants to lower the CSL and PE requirements. She believes that many students have commitments that prevent them from volunteering, such as having to work part time. She thinks CSL is a good way for students to learn, though she also finds the current requirement of 100 hours as excessive. Duong wants to lower the PE requirement because California only mandates two years, while Temple City requires three. She thinks that having an extra year of PE takes up schedule space for other classes that can potentially help a student’s future.
“I’m going to have take PE my senior year because I wanted to explore more of the CTE classes this year,” Duong said. “I really wish I could have used that schedule space to take more classes that might suit my major.”
However, because both of these proposals have already been unsuccessfully attempted, Duong fears it will be difficult to get them past the board. In order to make the proposition less ambitious, Duong will shift her priority to reducing the requirements for the class of 2020. By giving the district more time to fulfill this request, she believes the board will be more accepting towards the proposal.
“I feel that some of the graduation requirements aren’t completely necessary,” Duong said. “I’m hoping to make a change as soon as I possibly can.”
As a member of ASB and Robotics, she had attended a joint board meeting where both groups shared their accomplishments during the semester. She spoke behind a podium on behalf of Robotics, where she presented a grant request and gave updates on their current ranking and recent competitions.
In order to run for Student Board Member, Duong had to go through an interview with Mr. Kidd. Once she got past interviews, she began her campaigning process. She promoted herself with social media and posters around campus, then prepared a speech to present at the three election days.
“I was definitely nervous during the process because it was a new experience for me,” Duong said. “I was a bit stressed but I just did my best in the campaign process and everyone’s support helped keep me at ease.”
Duong will strive to take student feedback into consideration. She currently has a google form online that anyone can fill out to voice their concerns. This form can be reached at https://goo.gl/forms/tvB8BitqrVc5kqiI2
“I will try to bring up every situation that’s reasonable to the board member,” Duong said. “I will do my best to reach out to the person that gave the feedback if it wasn’t anonymous, and let them know it was brought up in a board meeting agenda.”
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